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William Smith Knowlton. 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

OR 

FORTY-FIVE YEARS 

WITH THE 

GIRLS AND BOYS 



BY 

WILLIAM SMITH KNOWLTON 



AUGUSTA. MAINE 

BURLEIGH dr FLYNT, Printers 

1905 



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LIBRARY ol JOttGR£SS 

JUL 24 I9U5 

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COPYRIGHTED I905 BY WILLIAM SMITH KNOWLTON. 



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TO MY BEST BELOVED PUPIL, 

MY DEAR WIFE, 

WHO, 

FOR TWO-SCORE YEARS HAS BEEN 

THE PARTNER OF MY JOYS AND SORROWS, 

THIS VOLUME 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE 

For a year or two I have had in mind to write a book 
something like the following pages, but no definite plan pre- 
sented itself until last summer. I then sent circulars to many 
former pupils regarding the matter. The replies received 
set me to work. I thought when I commenced the 
work I could devote my whole time to it, but conditions 
compelled me to teach; hence the story of my experiences 
has been written nights after teaching school for six hours. 
A radical change in the material used has also been made. 
The conception first entertained was to make the book 
consist mostly of biographical sketches of former pupils. I 
made this idea known to my pupils, and the almost universal 
voice of all called for a change. The demand was for more 
about the "Old Master" and less about the boys. I yielded to the 
request though still thinking the change was a mistake. I wish 
to thank, with tears of gratitude filling my eyes, the "Boys and 
Girls" who have helped me in this labor and kindly encouraged 
me. 

Foxcroft, May I. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Childhood 9 

II. Schooldays 23 

III. Visit to Dover 32 

IV. Foxcroft Academy 37 

V. First School 47 

VI. Foxcroft Affairs 53 

VII. College 57 

VIII. Atkinson 70 

IX. Milo 78 

X. Monson 86 

XI. Fishing 92 

XII. Monson Academy 97 

XIII. Exeter and Dexter 103 

XIV. Foxcroft Academy. Teacher 109 

XV. I'.RIMFlELD 113 

XVI. Marriage. Home 119 

XVII. Mdxson. Supervisor 124 

XVIII. Going to Houlton 131 

XIX. Houlton Academy 139 

XX. Presque Isle 160 

XXI. Caribou 168 

XXII. Monson Academy 177 

XXIII. Shirlky. Bill Nye 183 

XXIV. Funny People 191 

XXV. School Officers 212 

XXVI. College Requirements 216 

XXVII. Personal 229 

XXVIII. Sermon 253 

XXIX. Bridgewater 265 




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THE OLD SCHOOLMASTEK 

CHAPTER I. 

CHILDHOOD. 

I was born at East Sangerville, Maine, October 21st, 1839. 
My earliest recollection is an old clock that stood in the corner 
of the room where I slept in a trundle-bed. This bed was rolled 
out at night and served for a sleeping place for my brother and 
myself. In the morning it was pushed under the bed where 
father and mother slept. That trundle-bed had a history. 
There were fourteen children in all, and, although the house was 
large, with an ell on either side, yet it was always crowded, as 
my father boarded the men who worked in his mills. 

The bed was about four feet long. Two boys always occu- 
pied that bed till their feet began to stick out over the footboard ; 
then they graduated to a real bed in a large room where there 
were three beds. Sometimes the boy had to leave the trundle- 
bed before his feet touched the footboard ; since the graduate 
from the cradle was obliged to make a place for the last new 
comer. 

That bed now lies neglected in the attic. It finally fell into 
the hands of my brother Kendall. My brother and wife belong 
to the new century, and believe in allowing the foreigner to fill 
the schoolhouses and swell the Census Reports. So that poor 
old rheumatic trundle-bed was relegated to the darkness of the 
attic, where it grows old more gracefully than its former occu- 
pants do. 



IO THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

That old clock was very intimately connected with my child- 
hood days. I could see it as my mother bent over me to give 
the good-night kiss. It stands, as I write, in the hall, constantly 
reminding me of that dear mother with whom it was so long 
associated, though its hands, like hers, are folded at twelve and 
its voice, like her dear lips, is silent. The clock belonged to my 
maternal grandfather. It was an eight day clock, was very 
stately and dignified, always on time, like my mother. It 
reached from the floor to the ceiling. It once had a sort of 
head-dress or crown on its head, but this had been removed 
when once it stood in a low room. This gone, it had, as I 
thought, a kind of bald-headed look. In the other room was 
another tall clock that belonged to my paternal grandfather. 
This one had to be wound up every day. This was typical of my 
father. He wound himself up every morning for a busy day of 
hurry and bustle. 

There was also a cupboard I could see from the bed. There 
were two doors. Behind one, I knew, were those precious china 
dishes that were used only when distinguished company came to 
tea. The other door enclosed a family medicine chest. I real- 
ized, as I gazed with a shudder, just what that door concealed 
from view. There was that nauseous castor oil ; that detestable 
rhubard ; those abominable salts ; some peppermint and camphor. 
There were herbs there also ; burdock leaves for the feet, when a 
cold had been contracted. I have often wondered since if that 
burdock plant did not illustrate pretty well some of our moral 
and physical antidotes of today. That plant was cultivated in 
those days for its curative properties. Today almost every 
farmer spends hours in trying to extirpate an obnoxious, useless 
weed. 

Perhaps some of our social fads, so highly recommended by 
our professional quacks and learned theorists, may, in the future, 
stick simply because of their burrs, and not because of any real 
value. 



CHILDHOOD 1 1 

When we had a cold in the head mother put burdock leaves 
on our feet, so some of these modern old ladies apply the "medi- 
cine of their advice" to points in the mental body politic farthest 
from the real trouble. 

I could also see from my bed a small fireplace, and a cranky 
one too it was, and always smoked when the wind was in the 
northwest and, as that was the prevailing tendency of the 
wind, the smoking habit of that fireplace became chronic. I have 
since discovered that the smoking habit, once assumed, is a life- 
time habit. I suppose that chimney smoked to cure the effect 
of the cold north wind, and continued to try the medicine 
through length of days. So men, with the pertinacity of a 
senseless chimney, persist in a treatment of some imaginary 
trouble, hoping that before old age comes on, a complete cure 
can be accomplished. 

Not long ago I slept in that same room. The clock is 
gone but the cupboard is there ; the fireplace still smokes, but the 
trundle-bed is in the attic. 

From the back windows of that room I could see a grove of 
lofty pines where afterwards my woody temple of worship was. 
My father's house was situated in the middle of a large plain, 
which was nearly encircled by a high ridge or horseback. The 
mill stream and pond subtended the arc on the other side. The 
house was a large, story and a half one with ells and there were 
long sheds and a big barn. The chimney of that house was four 
feet square and stands today a monument of the faithfulness of 
the artisan of ninety years ago. 

Back of the house, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, there 
was a deep ravine between two parallel horsebacks. Through 
that valley flowed a small stream. On both sides of the ridges 
grew some lofty pines. Opposite the pines was a waterfall of 
some fifteen feet. I remember now the many happy hours I 
spent, sitting near that waterfall, hearing the noisy waters dash 
against the rocks, while the wind soughed through the branches 
of the somber pines. 



12 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

There were a few tall spruce trees near by whose contralto 
tones coalesced with the high treble of the sharp toned birches 
and maples. The rhythm was complete. It was Nature's orches- 
tra, attuned to my appreciative soul. 

I had read about Niagara; but that cataract was to me a 
paper waterfall. Here was a real one that eclipsed Niagara a 
thousand fold. That torrent seemed so majestic; that defile so 
marvelous ; those pine tops so near Heaven. I loved to go there 
and read the simple rhymes that delighted a rather precocious 
childhood. 

This was my Paradise. Adam had his, but it was never 
more real to him than mine was to me. In my childhood days, 
my mind took on a religious and poetical coloring that seems 
now rather remarkable. I worshipped here and saw and heard 
God, speaking to me. The doxology of the majestic, solemn 
pines, the cooing of the pigeons which filled the tree-tops, the 
noisy chatter of the fearless squirrels, the reverberating notes of 
the waterfall, the happy voices of the many colored birds ; all 
seemed to inspire me to lift up my voice in joyousness and praise. 
There was a cluster of violets close by and a few bunches of 
arbutus. In those flowers I saw God, a being so pure, so kind, 
so sweet and attractive that I could but worship him. And my 
God talked and walked with me, as with Adam, and sweet was 
that companionship, and many lessons sank deep into the soul in 
that, my Paradise. I resolved to be like the God I saw in my 
beloved Shekinah. 

Those flowers were sacred, those squirrels God's choristers, 
those pines his temple. And I thought it would last ; never 
dreamed the scene would change, or that I should ; thought life 
would be one grand meandering through pleasant scenes, or 
sauntering through flowery meadows that ever were in bloom. 

After I graduated from college I visited that well-remem- 
bered Eden, and did not recover my spirits for a month. Black- 
berry bushes had overgrown the old familiar path, the ruthless 
hand of man had laid low those sacred pines, vandals had shot 



CHILDHOOD 



13 



the squirrels, the pigeons had long - since departed ; the very 
brook had nearly dried up ; the water, as it trickled over the well- 
worn rocks, seemed to lament its departed glory. I was sad- 
dened, discomforted, shocked. I could not worship there, could 
not dreamily muse and talk with my old friends, could realize 
one fact only — that my Eden was gone forever. 

I have since learned, in revisiting the scenes of former 
activities, something sharper than briars have obstructed my 
pathway ; that the temples of friendship, cemented for eternity, 
have crumbled to dust ; that selfishness has slain every impulse to 
even remember. 

There were also mills, — a shingle-mill, sawmill, and grist- 
mill. In those mills I learned to exercise and develop my 
muscle. There was no football in those days. 

My father's name was Isaiah, and my mother's Lydia Pol- 
lard, Knowlton. The Captain Knowlton who fortified Charles- 
town Neck and fought so bravely at Bunker Hill was one of our 
ancestors. The first man killed in that battle was Luke Pollard, 
a great, great uncle of my mother. 

The Pollard family was good stock, but have nearly all dis- 
appeared from this part of the State. W. T. Pollard, the effi- 
cient game warden, is a cousin. My father had many brothers 
and sisters, most of them settling in Sangerville, hence about a 
quarter of the people of the town are relatives. The Knowlton 
people in Sangerville were and are good folks. They are indus- 
trious, peaceable citizens, and are favorably regarded. There 
have been several teachers in the family — my nephews and 
nieces. George H. Knowlton was for many years a prominent 
superintendent of schools in Massachusetts. 

There were fourteen children in my father's family. Xine 
of whom survive. 

Whether or not any of my ancestors came over in the May- 
flower I do not know. If they did, I must confess that many of 
their descendants have sadly departed from their theological 
views. The name has never been prominent in history. Some 



I 4 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

i 

have, however, occupied eminent positions. The Rev. Ebenezer 
Knowlton was, at one time, a Congressman, and the Hon. 
Hosea Knowlton was an eminent Attorney-General of Massa- 
chusetts. No one has ever been hung, and none, to my knowl- 
edge, have served the State at Thomaston. My father was Cap- 
tain in the Militia, and came near covering himself with glory, 
in the Aroostook War. Before he got there that famous com- 
mand had been given : 

"Run, Strickland, run ! Fire, Stover, fire !" 

He was Justice of the Peace and hence known far and near 
as "Squire." It was an office of some repute in those days. 
His father, Isaiah, and his mother, Jemima Johnson Knowlton, 
came to Sangerville from Framingham, Mass., when my father 
was seventeen years old. He felled the trees and cleared the 
farm on which he lived till he was nearly eighty years old. 
There was, on the falls of the Black Stream, a small grist-mill, 
when he came. This mill was run by a man by the name of 
Phineus Ames generally known as "King Ames." It was a very 
accommodating mill. It took care of itself mostly. Mr. Ames 
would pour into the hopper two bushels of corn and hoist the 
gate and go away to his farm. At noon he would put in another 
two bushels, which sufficed till night. At night he would put 
in four bushels, and that rickety old mill would rattle and bang 
and wheeze, and faithfully grind away till morning. 

Father lived, for some time, in a log house. In 1815 he 
built the house in which I was born. He afterwards built and 
rebuilt shingle, saw and grist mills. 

Sangerville was settled by five distinct classes. East San- 
gerville was mostly settled by Massachusetts people. They were 
a thrifty, hardworking people, who cleared up their farms, lived 
on them till their deaths and left them to their children. There 
are few spots in Maine where so many farms in one community 
have remained in the same unbroken line of possession. The 
Oakes, the Ponds, the Lanes, the Adams, the Watermans, who 



CHILDHOOD 15 

were the early settlers whose descendants are prominent citizens 
at this time. 

East Sangerville has always been noted for the sobriety and 
progressiveness of the people, and the interest taken in education. 
General Jackson was never more firmly established in the prin- 
ciples of democracy than are those untrammeled voters. 

Toward Dover came the Buckfield clan, consisting prin- 
cipally of Thompsons, with a few other families sandwiched 
in. Three Thompson brothers settled on the same road, on 
adjoining farms and lived there many years. This family 
became a prominent one in town and county. One of the farms 
still remains in the Thompson family, F. D. Thompson occupy- 
ing the farm his father cleared. 

The southern part of Sangerville was settled by people from 
New Hampshire. This was the religious part of the town. 
Hon. J. F. Sprague was born here. Sangerville Village grew 
up, like Topsy, with no particular parentage. There were some 
very characteristic men, however, among the early settlers. 

The Carleton family was somewhat noted. Old Elder 
Oakes, the grandfather of Wm. P. Oakes, of Foxcroft, was a 
noted preacher and when he spoke in stentorian tones "Words of 
sequipedalian length and thundering sound" came forth and 
routed all the hosts of sin. His son William, known aa 
"Colonel," was the father of a large family of boys, all of whom 
were men of more than ordinary ability. Elder Clark occupied 
a prominent position in the town. His son, William, died at 
middle age, but left a large family of boys and one girl. The 
boys nearly all became lawyers and each one distinguished him- 
self. 

Four served in the army during the Civil War. Two were 
Colonels and the others held positions of responsibility. They 
are nearly all dead now. Col. Charles A. Clark lives in Cedar 
Rapids, Mich., and is well known in the West and in Maine as of 
sterling worth and eminent ability. 



16 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

The Hussey family was well known. I personally knew one 
of them. I slept with him one night after he had eaten a quarter 
of a custard pie, two boiled eggs, three poached eggs and a fried 
egg or two. He groaned, squirmed, and groaned and "gritted 
his teeth" all night long. He said, the next morning, that he had 
the nightmare and dreamed that he was Sinbad the Sailor, and 
had eaten a roc's egg. 

The Carr family later became well known. One of the 
original settlers is still living, Moses Carr, over ninety years of 
age. He has always been a very busy man and has accumulated 
a large property. He helped build a church a few years ago 
and is a constant attendant. 

Sangerville Village is now a large and flourishing one ; has 
modern factories and other industries. The history of Sanger- 
ville is, on the whole, an interesting one. It is the best farming 
town in the county and has sent forth into the world some very 
bright men. "Brockway's Mills" was, in my boyhood, an enter- 
prising place. There was a hotel, store, and blacksmith shop 
there and some lumber mills. Nearby the mills lived a very 
peculiar man by the name of Maxim. He was an undeveloped 
genius. He invented a machine which would turn out an oblong 
bowl, but some other reaped the reward. Mr. Maxim used to 
come to my father's mill to have his grain ground, and often 
Hiram would come with his father. I remember he was full of 
fun and a great boy to laugh. He is now Sir Hiram and lives in 
England but occasionally revisits the scenes of his boyhood. 
His history is so interesting that I have appended to this paper 
a more extended narrative. 

Another boy whom I knew was born near by. His career 
is a noted one. With but a limited education, he started out in 
life to make his own way. He became a trader, and later, a 
speculator in real estate. But this did not satisfy him. He 
determined to educate himself by an extensive course of reading, 
with the result that he has become a master of classical English 
and has published books. Mr. S. has been thrice in the legis- 



CHILDHOOD 17 

lature and prominent in the political world. In the meantime 
he was admitted to the bar and has a lucrative practice. He is a 
member of the Maine Historical Society and is Notary Public 
and is now Referee in Bankruptcy. 

He is well known to the political world as the Hon. J. F. 
Sprague. Should Mr. Sprague devote his whole time to literary 
matters, he would do honor to his native town. 

The Thompson family was a prominent one. I have spoken 
of them before. Dr. E. A. Thompson, of Dover, is the son of 
James Thompson, one of the early settlers. The doctor is one 
of Dover's most prominent citizens. He has had an extensive 
practice and is still in practice as a consulting physician of wide 
reputation. Dr. Thompson has been one of the Council, and 
occupied other prominent political positions, is President of the 
Board of Trustees of Foxcroft Academy. Four years ago, he 
gave ten thousand dollars to found the Thompson Free Library. 
J know of no way in which a man can embalm his memory more 
certainly in the souls of men than by furnishing them with good 
books. Bacon says: "Reading makes a full man." No man can 
be an all-round educated person without extensive reading. 
The especial reason why one person is a ready speaker, a good 
conversationalist, a sound adviser and deep reasoner, lies in the 
one fact, he has read much and read good books. 

But it is all important to know just what books to put into 
the hands of the young. I know of no better way of judging 
the influence of a book than for a teacher to read the book and 
then sit and think it over ; call up the characters one by one and 
discover where his sympathy lies ; to picture to himself the whole 
career of the chief characters and discover if the character is 
one that leaves an impression on the mind of the reader that sin 
is rewarded. Is vice made attractive, and virtue neglected? 
Does the book leave an impression that tells for purity, honesty, 
and a useful life? 

No one would be so stupid as to take a child to an abattoir 
to teach refinement. Certainly we would shield the young from 



l8 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

brutal sights and associations in actual life ; so should the child 
be kept from brutal mental visions which degrade. But, it is 
urged, the young do see all these things in real life, then why 
not in books? In real life the moral goes with the deed that is 
objectionable. In books too often the sequel is not as well 
known. The suggestive is often worse than the blunt statement 
of facts. There are books that, on a casual reading appear all 
right ; yet a careful perusal locates them among the objectionable. 

There are but few objectionable words in "Don Juan," but 
the whole poem is fit for the fire only. A superintendent once 
objected to my pupils reading "Jane Eyre." I can see no objec- 
tion to the book. A young lady reads the book and learns that 
wickedness is terribly punished ; that virtue and decency can only 
bring peace and happiness. The reading of that book, in my 
opinion, would make every one better, and none the worse. 

"The Scarlet Letter" is another book under ban with many 
teachers. I would put it into the hands of every young lady. 
The literary style of the book is worth everything. The book is 
interesting, and will compel a complete reading. It gives an 
admirable description of the social and religious conditions of 
those stern times. 

Lastly — the moral impression left upon the mind is that sin, 
— however secret, — will be proclaimed from the housetop ; that 
every deviation from moral rectitude engenders a punishment 
that is the more terrible as the crime is more repulsive. The 
book is full of the most minute details in every part that apper- 
tains to events of life, and especially in describing mental anguish 
and pain, but the crime is just alluded to. It is the specific 
details in questionable books that give offence. 

I do not believe in giving to the young nothing but "namby- 
pamby" books. "The Bonny Brier Bush" will do nicely for the 
goody boy or girl who dies young. Feed their intellect on such 
breakfast food as that book for a year; the result would be debil- 
itating in the extreme. The age does not demand young men 



CHILDHOOD 19 

who are good simply because they have not activity enough to 
lead them in devious pathways. 

Many teachers object to Dickens. They think him coarse, 
rough, and vulgar ; and advise their pupils to refrain from read- 
ing his books. I take issue immediately with such critics and 
advocate reading Dickens' works by all means. The first and 
obvious reason is that Dickens' characters are so interwoven into 
literature that a knowledge of his writings becomes indispensable 
to an accurate appreciation of other books. "Barkis is willing" 
will never cease to be quoted ; "Like Oliver Twist" will be a 
simile for many years to come. A page of description and 
denunciation of brutality can portray no such appreciation as 
the simple name of "Squiers." I hesitate not to venture the 
statement that many an incipient Pecksniff has been driven 
shamefacedly from a chosen course in Pecksniffism by reading 
the portrayal of that airy impostor. Observation of any man 
shows very clearly that the man who would win the ladies' affec- 
tion does as fresh and green things as the man in small-clothes 
did when he threw cucumbers over the wall to Mrs. Nickleby. 
How would the aspirant for political honors know how to close 
a letter to his constituents, if he did not have "Micawber" for a 
guide? Lots of men and women have been made better by 
becoming acquainted with Yarden and wife, and Dolly — the 
charming, true-hearted, good-natured Dolly — every girl ought 
to know her. 

Someone called Dickens' description of "Little Nell" and 
her death "bathos." Nothing can be farther from the truth. 
If that is bathos, then much of the writings of Washington 
Irving is unworthy of perusal. It seems to me that every word 
in that almost inspired description expresses the real emotion 
that a man with a human soul in his breast would feel in seeing 
and recording his emotions. 

The description of the death of Paul Dombey is unrivaled, 
No writer has ever even approached the delineation of a charac- 
ter like Dombey's wife. Esther will never fade from human 



20 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

appreciation. I have seen the Cheeryble Brothers in actual life. 
Mr. Carker lives in every village. No writer ever described a 
repulsive murder with less unsightly exhibitions of the horrid as 
did Dickens in the death of Nancy. Mark Tapley has been a 
source of great enjoyment to me, and not only that, but many 
a dark hour when the tired brain and discouraged heart was 
almost ready to lay down the burden, the jolly Tapley has driven 
away the "blues" and brought back a fresh determination to still 
strive and hope. Sweet "Little Dorrit" — who does not love her 
and in loving become better? Tom, loving, trusting, Tom Finch. 
Every town needs just such a man and, if he cannot b~ found in 
actual life, then it is something to find the character delineated 
in books. Nor is Tom Finch an impossible character. I have 
met just such men. I could not wish all men to be such as he 
was, neither would the world be very comfortable if everybody 
was like Martin Chuzzlewit. 

But books are as different as men. One man leads by his 
association to a higher and better life; while another injures 
everyone with whom he comes in contact. So with books — One 
moulds the taste in the right direction, gives true views of life, 
stimulates the ambition, and furnishes the mind with an immense 
fund of knowledge. Another book ruins the taste, vitiates the 
morals, and gives wrong conceptions of the duties of life. It is 
my opinion, formed by careful observation of young people, 
that there need be no cheap or bad book read. I fully believe, if 
a requisite amount of good reading be placed in the hands of the 
boy or girl while young, that a taste would be formed that would 
make it impossible for them to read a bad book. 

I am aware there is a great diversity of opinion concerning 
books and what I might call a good book another might call bad. 
I lay down this rule that no book should be read that does not 
refine the taste. No one can afford to be made coarser than he 
is by nature. 

There must be a good literary style abouf a book; or it 
should not be read, however much of good thought and fact there 



CHILDHOOD 21 

may be expressed within the covers. Every book should teach 
something, or it is not worth reading. I have been told that the 
author of "The God of Things" remarked that no definite aim 
actuated her in writing that book. But still, I can read between 
the lines, I think, a half-hidden advocacy of a certain condition. 

There are books just to amuse. That is a necessary book 
for the tired brain-worker. The book may not contain an idea 
worth remembering, but still, it had an object and had accom- 
plished it. 

I have no doubt but that, should every woman in the land 
read "Great Expectations" there would be less termagants in the 
home. When a person sees a delineation of themselves in print 
and recognizes the likeness, it leads to reform and a change of 
life. Even an habitual scold would be disgusted with the per- 
formances of "Mrs. Joe." 

There have been a few books written that should never 
become antiquated. "The Vicar of Wakefield" left an impres- 
sion upon the literature of that day that still lives. The same is 
true of Dickens' works. Most books die young. All do which 
do not present to the reader a distinctive character. There is 
nothing in "David Harum" which will immortalize it except the 
one point — the presentation of an unique character, coarse 
though it be. 

My boyhood was so uneventful that but little comment 
need be made. I know I was a quiet boy, and very shy. 
I liked some kinds of fun and sports and became an expert 
wrestler. 

There was a maiden lady living on one corner of our farm 
who used to lecture us boys a good deal, and we liked to teaze 
her. One day we threw snow-balls down her chimney. She told 
father, and he said he would whip all four of us, in the morning. 
I remember lying awake a long time that night, wondering how 
he would do it : whether he would stand us all up in a row and go 
up and down the line and switch each as he passed by ; or 
whether he would take one at a time, while the rest looked on 



22 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

and pitied the one in "actual commission ;" or if he would use a 
shingle ; and then I wondered if one shingle would last through ; 
again I pictured the condition of each after the operation was 
completed. I felt sure I should cry the loudest. 

But the shingle-mill broke down that morning, and father 
had to go to Bangor for repairs, and forgot all about it. I have 
ever felt grateful to the unknown workman who manufactured 
that defective saw. Wish I could feel that mv misdeeds lead 
to such happy results to somebody. 

I can remember that once, and once only, did I swear. 
Then I was chasing the sheep. I feel sure that no one ought to 
swear. But. if the Recording Angel does ever, with a tear, blot 
out the record of an oath, he will be especially gracious to a boy 
chasing sheep, or trying to make a calf drink milk. My mother 
heard me swear, and I was very much ashamed. To evade her. 
I went to bed supperless that night ; and received a severe pun- 
ishment, alone with my conscience. 

My uncle lived just across the mill stream. There were 
three girls in the family. One of these girls was a little younger 
Iban I. I used to go to school with those girls. That is, I ran 
along ahead of them, or capered along behind them as boys gen- 
erally do. I used to be desperately in love with Emily, but wa > 
<fery careful not to let her know it. In those days there were 
large farm houses in which was one room without a carpet. Th-; 
young people of East Sangerville would, in the winter time, meet 
at our house one week and dance till twelve ; next week at Mr 
Pond's, and so on. All my brothers learned to dance. I nevei 
tried to do so. I guess, if my mother had danced I should have 
learned ; but no desire, however strong, could have made me face 
a girl on the floor. I rather enjoyed sitting in the corner and 
watching them. I wonder if I was the last boy created who 
acted that way ? 



CHAPTER II. 

SCHOOL DAYS. 

When I was three years and seven months old I attended 
school for the first time. The schoolhouse was nearly a mile 
from my home. To get there we had to pass through a dark 
cedar swamp, full of death-dealing monsters, as I thought. My 
older brother and I started on that eventful morning for that old 
schoolhouse. We came, at last, to a post on which were two 
boards; on one was painted Dover, on the other Deacon D. I 
had never seen Dover, did not know whether it was a man or 
some other animal, or a house. Another board pointed up a 
road that had much grass in it, with wheel tracks on each side. 
That board told us that Deacon D. lived up that way. 

I knew the Deacon. He once caught me sliding on Sunday 
and told me I would go to perdition if I didn't stop that. The 
Deacon was a nice old gentleman but he had some peculiar 
notions about how to preach the Gospel of Peace. 

At one time there was a drought and my father's mill was 
the only one in the county that could grind wheat. As all the 
people raised the wheat that produced their flour, it is plain to 
see that the mill had to be kept going day and night and Sundays 
too. The good Deacon was passing by the mill one Sunday, on 
his way to church and heard the sound of the grinding. It 
vexed his righteous soul. He felt it his duty to remonstrate. 
He remembered that, in ancient times, the Sabbath-breaker was 
stoned. Just beyond the mill was a steep hill. The Deacon was 
withal a man of considerable discretion in executing rather rash 
resolves. So, unlike the strippling David, he selected a large 



24 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



stone and, having ascended the hill a little, he hurled it with 
mighty force against the mill. 

It struck the mill upon the left flank and knocked off some 
shingles. Those shingles have never been replaced. The old 
mill shows today the disastrous effect of the Deacon's attempt 
to enforce muscular Christianity. 

The Deacon was sectarian to a remarkable degree in his 
religious associations. The Congregationalist church held meet- 
ings in the Union Meeting house, when I was a small boy. 
When my maternal grandmother died, the funeral services were 
observed in that house and a Baptist clergyman officiated. On 
the following Sunday, as I stood near the door I noticed that the 
good Deacon hesitated a little and when Deacon F. asked him if 
he was not going in, he snarled out : "That house must be puri- 
fied by brimstone before I want to enter it." I didn't know what 
he meant till mother told me that night. 

It must be difficult for a young person of today to realize 
that such bigotry could have existed. But it did. The preju- 
dices existing in the soul of people of one denomination against 
those of another were the most intense and undying possible ; and 
the world wondered. But, if the world had carefully considered 
the conditions, it would have seen that "Such things must 
needs be." 

If a man should act that way now, he would be thought 
insane. But the conditions are all changed now. At the present 
time as each one travels his own chosen road to Heaven he 
recognizes the fact that there are many other roads, more or less 
parallel to his, all tending toward the New Jerusalem and that 
they all finally converge into a common highway at the end of the 
"Covered Bridge." This makes us tolerant of each other's 
opinions. We think our road is the best and rather pity the 
other fellow, stumbling along through by-paths, while we tread 
the well-paved boulevard of an established thoroughfare, but we 
expect to find him by the storm-lashed Jordan's bank, and that 
we shall stand beside him by the still waters of the "Jasper Sea." 



SCHOOL DAYS 25 

In the old days each one was sure he alone was right. 
This was almost imperative from the condition of things. There 
were so many that not only did not believe but were active in 
opposition ; so whoever did believe in Christianity had to fight 
his way all along. Infidels had to be met and answered, unbe- 
lievers met and confounded, and scoffers put to shame. And as a 
man who comes home at night after a day's contest in the politi- 
cal or business world is poorlv fitted to receive advice from his 
wife in those matters, so the old theologians, fresh from a fierce 
fight with Appolyon had little patience with an ally who used a 
different carbine and a longer sword. Christian truth was not 
so well established as now. It was comparatively new. Fifty 
years is quite a fraction of the 1900 years comprising the Chris- 
tian Era. 

I once heard a man preach who was one hundred years old. 
Nineteen men like that would carry the line back to that wonder- 
ful Preacher whom the world had awaited for four thousand 
years. Christianity has done wondrous things, notwithstand- 
ing the many errors it has committed. What it can do for the 
world has only been intimated. The Sermon on the Mount 
today furnishes the text for all pulpits and even deacons have 
yielded to the marvelous eloquence of that sublime sermon. 

It was said, a few lines back, that the effect of that stone, 
thrown by the hand of the over-zealous Deacon, could be seen on 
the side of the mill at the present time. That was more than 
half a century ago, yet the effect is discernible, and sure am I 
that that indiscreet act of a rash advocate left impressions on 
human hearts that will live when that mill has crumbled to dust. 
One of the most telling proofs of the truths of Christianitv is 
that it has survived the advocacy of some of its friends. 

The schoolhouse where I learned my A B C's was a low, 
unpainted, ramshackle of a house. It was built on a small 
mound rising a little out of a frog pond, in the edge of a cedar 
swamj). I do not know why it was built there but suppose it 
was done on ethical and perhaps financial grounds. The town 



26 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

did not raise money to pay a music teacher, but the committee 
were bound to have music anyway, and have it they did. On 
every dark or rainy day at three o'clock those frogs would com- 
mence to sing sub-bass in such solemn and profound tones that 
the bad boy ceased sticking pins in the other fellow and stared 
in awe-struck wonder. Then the little frogs began to pipe up 
on the high notes which made the nervous little girl jump. 

The discord was increased by the shrill voice of the teacher 
and the low mutterings of the bashful boys. 

Nearby was a little brook where we got a supply of rather 
muddy water for laving and drinking purposes. 

I attended school at that house for several terms. Every 
year the old building leaked worse and worse, and, at length, 
took a lurch toward the road and plainly showed that its useful- 
ness was over. By a vote of the district a new house was to be 
built farther away from our house. Three years later a "Little 
Red Schoolhouse" was built and the old one turned into a 
sheep pen. 

That old house is now gone. Thistles and burdocks now 
cover the spot. The wide-mouthed descendants of that outside 
choir still sing and that little brook still lazily passes along. 
The boys and the girls, where are they? Many are sleeping on 
the hillside a mile away ; a few still live in the town, while many 
are in all parts of the land. 

Nearly opposite the schoolhouse was a farm-house. The 
farmer was also a shoemaker. Here all the boys went to get 
their boots made and mended. The father of the shoemaker 
lived with him. The old fellow believed in witches and devils. 
I was there one day in winter when the old man was churning. 
The cream was cold and the butter would not come. The aged 
patriach declared in solemn tones : "The Devil is in it." He 
heated the tongs red-hot and thrust them into the cream. "Hear 
him hiss" said the old Puritan. The butter came very soon, and 
the old man was confirmed in his superstition. 



SCHOOL DAYS 27 

The Devil seems to be a kind of "scape goat" for a great 
many people. Some claim he tempts them when even his 
satanic majesty would hardly feel complimented by the least 
association with them. We also often blame him for the results 
which follow a lack of care on our part. It is much easier to 
blame an absent party than to face a visible one. It seems to me 
if a pair of red-hot tongs would drive the Devil out of men as 
well as cream that every town should have a pair of proper 
officers to apply them to those who are possessed with such 
spirits. 

The position selected for the new house was as peculiar as 
the other. It was in one corner of as bleak a sheep pasture as 
the town of Sangerville possessed. The snow always drifted to 
the corner of the house on the south side, and higher still on the 
other sides. Across the road was a cow pasture, descending in 
precipitous abruptness ; half-way down the hill was a spring from 
which an aqueduct ran. We used, in summer time, to eat our 
dinner here and sometimes put bread crumbs in the aqueduct, 
just to see if they would come out at the other end. This did not 
cause Mr. Thompson to love little boys very much. 

A tall elm tree that looked very much as I have seen politi- 
cians after election, groaned and wailed every time the wind 
blew, stood a little east of the house ; and close by the lugubrious 
elm grew a pugnaceous maple tree. Every branch of that tree 
seemed to be in battle array. They did not, like most limbs, 
point gracefully upward, but proceeded right out straight, like 
pikes or bayonets. There were a few dead branches, from which 
the bark had fallen, bristling like spears. 

Nearby the schoolhouse was a large orchard, owned by Mr. 
W. G. Thompson. Of course, we small boys visited that 
orchard every day and partook freely of the forbidden fruit, with 
the usual results. The first reader, sour apples, the colic, and 
essence of peppermint all were factors in my experience of those 
davs. 



2 8 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

In this new schoolhouse I enjoyed the ministrations of some 
very good, and a few very poor teachers. One incident of those 
days is indelibly stamped upon my memory, and from which a 
moral can be drawn. For some misdemeanor, I presume, the 
teacher, a grim, hollow-eyed woman, compelled me to sit beside 
the wall on an invisible stool, which, indeed, had no physical 
existence. I sat in that position for half an hour, suffering all 
the tortures of the ancient martyrs, while the class in grammar 
was reciting. Inseparably with the recitation of grammar were 
associated the horrors of that excruciating punishment. When- 
ever a teacher suggested to me that I ought to begin the study of 
Grammar, my legs would begin to ache with the most intense 
pain, from simple recollection. Whatever halting my reader 
discovers in the grammatical fluency of this book I beg will be 
ascribed to that unfortunate associating of grammar and aching 
muscles in the calf of the leg. So, for two years, I refused to 
study grammar. 

The moral I draw is that there are many men and women 
in the world who like or dislike sentiments, propositions and 
relations — not because of anything inherent in them, but because 
of early associations. There is in my mind, at this late day, a 
teacher associated with almost every study I pursued when a 
boy. 

A sour-faced Miss Green attempted to teach me long 
division. I disliked the teacher and hated long division. One 
day she kept me at that battle-scarred pine blackboard for a full 
hour, "bringing down," substracting, multiplying, putting next 
figure in the quotient, — till I cried for mercy, and was told that 
the teacher could do the same at ten with perfect ease. 

I remember with great pleasure the first real teacher I ever 
had. For that venerable lady I have, to this day, the greatest 
respect and love. She taught me geography and history in such 
charming ways that I have ever had her pleasant smile before 
me whenever attempting to teach those lessons. I wish to 
express, at this time and in this book, a recognition of the deep 



SCHOOL DAYS 29 

obligation under which I have ever been to that teacher who first 
inspired within my soul a desire to become a scholar and teacher. 
It was so easy to study when she assigned the lessons. I* 
seemed nice to become a teacher, if she could be imitated. To 
Mrs. Sarah Carter- Vaughan I owe more than to any one teacher, 
nay, than to all my early ones. Very few persons ever so per- 
fectly satisfied every demand made by their positions in life and 
society as has Mrs. Vaughan. As a teacher, none was her 
superior, — as a business woman, no one is more implicitly 
trusted. Kind of heart, sympathetic in affection, interested in 
all things and persons around her, she does not grow old like 
most women. Every year seems to me to add some new grace 
to that dear teacher I loved so well more than fifty years ago. 
"Redeat serus in coclum." 

That schoolhouse had a blackboard fastened to the wall by 
small ropes. That little seven by nine blackboard had a history 
which illustrates the difficulties every teacher meets who seeks 
to adopt new and better methods. Blackboards were unknown 
in the town, but one day, a new teacher was engaged, who 
wanted a blackboard. Everybody in the district laughed at the 
idea ; ever- old lady said it was ridiculous and every old man 
objected to such extravagance. The committee opposed the 
idea and the agent derided, but the teacher, at length, prevailed 
and a carpenter was employed to build a blackboard. The 
teacher's plan was discarded. The carpenter thought he knew 
best how to build a blackboard, as he had built barns all his life, 
so he matched two wide pine boards and painted them with oil 
and lampblack. One board had a big knot in one corner, sur- 
rounded by streaks of pitch pine. When the room became hot 
that corner of the board would sweat, the same as we did. The 
carpenter, contrary to orders, persisted in varnishing that board. 
Vain were the protests of teacher. "I have painted floors all 
my days," said he, "and I always varnish them." Varnish it he 
did. The chalk would slide over that board and leave no more 
impression than the appeal of a tearful teacher to a mean, sullen 



3o 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



scholar. Sandpaper had to be used every day. That Carpenter 
has been dead for forty years, but it took many sheets of sand- 
paper to rectify his mistake. 

How many times have I had experiences similar to that 
in attempts to improve the schools where I have been employed. 
There is always, in every town, somebody ready to immortalize 
himself as a nuisance. The laws of the State of Maine recog- 
nize certain things as public nuisances ; now, if that law could 
be so amended as to include educational obstructions in the garb 
of committee men and superintendents of schools a great benefit 
would be conferred upon the course of education. I have found 
men and women who once were efficient in those positions, but 
the position has progressed ; they have not, and are hinderances, 
stumbling-blocks, active and passive in every attempt to pro- 
mote progress. I have been asked to teach as I once taught, 
forty years ago. I have been criticized for methods of teaching 
the most approved by all educators simply because the critics 
had been so long dead in educational matters that any resurrec- 
tion could not be even hoped for. Men there are who, because 
they had planned a very convenient carriage house or barn think 
they know all about the needs of a schoolhouse ; because they 
know that potatoes are first planted, then hoed, then dug, — 
think they are fully qualified to invent a course of study for the 
development of the mind of a child ; because they can run an 
engine, or make a martinhouse, with unpardonable pomposity 
assert that every part of the machinery appertaining to educa- 
tional progress is fully understood by them. 

That old red schoolhouse still stands on that bleak hillside. 
The paint has grown somewhat dim, the chimneys show the 
decrepitude of an old man in his weakness, the blackboard, cleft 
in twain, hangs from the wall by one end ; the seat where I 
carved my initials in straggling hieroglyphics, shows the effect 
of forty years of service and the worse results of ten years of 
idleness. The groaning elm still moans disconsolately when 



SCHOOL DAYS 31 

the wind blows, and the unsightly maple thrusts its dead limbs 
threateningly toward every passerby; but no boys slide there 
now, no urchin steals Mr. Thompson's apples, no bread crumbs 
disturb the aqueduct. The red schoolhouse fuit. Nos dis- 
ci puli fuitnus. Where forty scholars once slid, played, and 
fought, the ungainly sheep now run and bleat, and the educa- 
tional mudcart conveys the half-dozen juveniles, seeking knowl- 
edge, to another district. 

When I was about thirteen, we were set off into the Corner 
District. 

I attended that school for two or three years, and occasion- 
ally went two or three miles to attend some district school while 
our school was not in session. In fact, I never lost an opportuni- 
ty to attend school. It must have been almost a craze with me. 
— Almost every night my mother had to send me to bed. That 
love for study has never left me, and I hope it never will. No 
pleasure has ever pleased me as those derived from intellectual 
pursuits, and I can discern no diminution whatever in this mat- 
ter. I was, in my younger days, rather prococious in some 
studies, and just fair in others ; always had a liking for mathe- 
matics and rhetoric. 

I was a very bashful boy and never appeared in public if 
I could help it. I have never quite overcome my reluctance 
to public services. I do not think one ever does. I have often 
envied the men who seemed to enjoy occupying public positions 
and exhibiting themselves on the stage. I have never been a 
fluent conversationalist, have always preferred to listen rather 
than speak. Perhaps some of my pupils will question the last 
statement. 

I had become by this time a fair scholar in grammar and 
mathematics and began to think about attending Foxcroft Acad- 
emy. I desired much to go but dreaded to commence. I have 
never met a more bashful boy than I was. Nothing but an 
irresistible desire for an education led me to present myself at 
that school. 



CHAPTER III. 

VISIT TO DOVER. 

When a small boy the newspaper became my constant com- 
panion. I read it completely, advertisements and all, and thought 
the editor wrote it completely and must be a most extraordinary 
man. The Piscataquis Observer was the family paper. When 
ten years old I decided to become an editor. 

We lived about three miles from Dover and Foxcroft vil- 
lages. Those towns personified, in my youthful mind, the sum 
total of all that was typical of the great, bustling world. One 
day my father took me to the town to see th sights. I can 
recall, at this hour, the marvelous things I saw, the individuals 
I met and the impressions received. The first place we visited 
was the printing office. Father hauled a load of wood to pay 
for the Observer. Then, for the first time, I saw a real, living 
editor. The reverential awe that stole over me as I gazed upon 
the solemn features of G. V. Edes completely paralyzed my 
tongue, and caused me to whisper in low tones, as I enquired 
about the paraphernalia of the office. Mr. Edes was a tall, spare 
man, somewhat deaf, and spoke in loud tones. He was busily 
pulling a long lever backward and forward, and I discovered 
that it seemed hard work. That operation took away some of 
my desire to become an editor. The dingy little office did not 
seem just what was expected, and when I saw a compositor pull- 
ing bits of unwashed metal from the mouth that had become, 
by association of the same color as the type, my desire grew 
fainter still, and when Mr. Edes informed my father that the 



VISIT TO DOVER 



33 



occupation was not a healthful one, the last desire vanished, and 
all the glorious achievements of Horace Greeley, that had so 
stimulated my soul, passed by like the Pharisee, on the other 
side. 

The memory of G. V. Edes should not pass lightly from 
the remembrance of the citizens of Piscataquis county. He was 
not a learned man, but a thoroughly honest one. He faithfully 
did his duty and made his paper the best possible. With him 
the publishing of a paper was not simply a business enterprise. 
He felt that the editor of a paper occupied the position of a moral 
reformer, and that he ought always to be found on the right 
side of every social controversy. No doubtful advertisements 
appeared in his paper. — He never kept silent because silence 
paid. His influence upon the moral and political world around 
him was always good, and will never die. I suppose we must 
grant as true in general terms the statement I heard an editor 
make that men engaged in newspaper work just as in any other 
enterprise, for money making only, but the public do not so 
regard it, and certainly there must be a duty resting upon the 
editor that he cannot, in honor, escape. 

My father also pointed out to me Deacon Mayo and Deacon 
Parsons of the Congregationalist church. They were both tall, 
spare men. I was not then well posted on deacons, so, in my 
childish mind, I drew the conclusion that a deacon in that church 
must be tall, very thin and stern-looking. 

Father also informed me that a big, fat man, with a smile 
that enveloped his whole face, was Deacon Leonard Robinson, 
of the Baptist church ; hence I became fully satisfied that all 
Baptist deacons were fat, and jolly, with a nasal twang in the 
voice. This conclusion was verified in a few moments when 
Mr. Buck, another Baptist deacon, came along and passed a joke 
or two with father. 

By the way I came to know Deacon Buck very well when 
I taught at Foxcroft, and enjoyed his paternal advice very much. 



34 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



There was in his makeup a keen appreciation of the finer attri- 
butes of the soul. I have always thought of him as the con- 
necting link between the past and the present. There was in 
his soul the old puritanical conception of duty, rigid adherence 
to recognized dogmas, and yet, the odors of a kindlier interpre- 
tation distilled from every exhortation he gave, and showed the 
prophetic dawning of a Christian era more glorious, because 
more Christ-like. 

Afterward I became acquainted wth his family. Alfred, 
late minister to Japan, was a dear friend to me and 
"steered" me into the DKE fraternity at college. Addison and 
I were friends to his death. I always enjoyed meeting a man 
like him who had a kindly word and a warm hand for a fellow 
mortal. There is lots of good blood in the Buck family. 

I remember also that we, father and I, went into Sawyer 
and Woodbury's store. Mr. Woodbury sold us some nails. 
I thought Mr. Woodbury the politest man I had ever seen. 
He said some nice things to me, and, in fact, the first kinds words 
a stranger had ever before said. Boys of ten or twelve are not 
the recipients of many lauditory remarks, as a rule. 

I learned to love Mr. Woodbury when a grown-up boy, I 
saw him very frequently. He did many kind things for me 
when I was teaching at Dover and Froxcroft. I always felt 
that a visit to Dover was never complete without a half hour's 
chat with C. A. B. Woodbury. The last time I preached at 
Dover, Mr. Woodbury came to hear me, and said some very 
kind things about the sermon. Dover has never been the same 
since that kindly, lovable man passed to his reward. 

In every town there are two especial treasure houses where 
are recorded the facts that men have lived and died. The one 
is the living memory of immortal souls ; the other is a costly cen- 
tograph, covered with snow half of the year, and moss the rest, 
vainly seeking to make the dying, the perishable, immortal, and 
forever honored. 



VISIT TO DOVER 35 

I also saw Squire Holmes on that trip to Dover. He was 
the first lawyer I ever saw. His hair and whiskers were very 
long and white ; so the conclusion was reached that lawyers were 
never barefaced. I have seen many legal gentlemen since, and 
the bare- faced cheek of some was rather striking. 

Father called to see "Old Cat" Chamberlain to get him to 
repair the mill. Mr. Chamberlain was a distinctive character. 
He spoke with a nasal drawl that no one could imitate, and em- 
phasized every remark with a sort of prod of his long, stiff, 
middle finger, which he waved to and fro, sweeping away all 
adverse argument. His face, as I remember it, was wrinkled 
to a remarkable degree ; his eyes were rather deep-set and twin- 
kled just a bit when he said some sarcastic things about the 
peculiarities of other men. I never saw him smile. Once in 
a while, the wrinkles on each side of his eyes would begin to 
curl up a bit at the outer ends, promising a smile, but immedi- 
ately a counter current would set in, and every line would disap- 
pear, just as waves do on the lake when winds blow crosswise. 
Then the old wrinkles would reappear, and the eyes would twin- 
kle anew with the same critical scrutiny. 

The peculiar sayings of this old-time philosopher were many 
and original. He occasionally practiced law in a small way, in 
a manner peculiarly his own. On one occasion a lot of sheep 
disappeared, and their heads were found in a flour barrel in the 
barn of a certain man. The man was arrested and tried for 
larceny. Lawyer Holmes, in conducting the defense, said the 
sheep were not stolen, but had strayed away, as was common in 
the spring. Mr. Chamberlain in reply said : "Yes, I know 
sheep dew stray this time of year but they don't usually leave 
their heads in flour barrels in the haymow." 

He went to Guilford to settle a case with the selectmen, 
but failed and gave this report : "Mr. A. will do nothing wrong, 
if he knows it; Mr. B. will do nothing at all, if he knows it; and 
Mr. C. will do nothing right, if he knows it." 



36 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

On one occasion when the waiter at the table did not refill 
his cup as quickly as he wished, he threw it into the fire-place, 
remarking, "I have no further use for you." 

It is only pioneer life that develops eccentric characters. 
They disappear as the attrition of the daily contact with a bust- 
ling world rounds off the sharp corners. — They are still found 
in newer places, and have a distinct individuality. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOXCROFT ACADEMY. 

I commenced to attend Foxcroft Academy in 1857, and 
continued till the spring of sixty. Mr. Davis was the first 
teacher, and S. C. Belcher the last. In those days the country 
boy had to get "acquainted" with the village boy before he could 
enjoy life. The first week was not a Millenium dawn to me, and 
when Friday night came, I had nearly decided to resign, but 
when Monday morning came a new idea struck me. I resolved 
to assume the offensive. The change of base was a success. 
Within fifteen minutes I had humbled the minister's hopeful son, 
nearly broken the neck of the lawyer's boy and walked into the 
good graces of the school at a two-minute gait. 

Mr. Belcher was a very stern, exacting teacher; but if 
Maine ever had a better teacher of Latin and Greek, I have never 
seen him. Every lesson must be thoroughly mastered and readily 
recited. When I left Foxcroft Academy, I could commence 
with the first paragraph in Andrew & Stoddard's Latin Gram- 
mar and recite it to the finis, exceptions and all. I always fall 
back upon that old grammar, if in doubt about any peculiar 
construction. Every word in the text was parsed and rules 
given. It is the only way to teach Latin. There is no "short 
course" in Latin ; it is only a part of a course. "Caesar Read in 
Six Weeks" is the title of a book in my library. The idea is 
ridiculous, and the experiment a sad failure. 

I wish to explain here the manner in which Latin should 
be taught. The first book used should be one of the modern 



38 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Latin books arranged for the first year. Collier's is a good one. 
There is only one objection worthy of note. The daily vocabu- 
laries are too long. There should be about six or seven new 
words learned each day. At the end of the first year, the stu- 
dent should have a complete knowledge of all declensions of 
nouns and pronouns, conjugation of verbs, and the general rules 
of syntax. 

Caesar and the regulation grammar should occupy the atten- 
tion of the pupil the second year. The whole attention of pupil 
and teacher should be devoted to the solving of the construction 
of the Latin language. If the forms are not familiar, they 
should be made so at once, then the syntax ought to be most 
rigidly scrutinized, and finally, every phase of the subjunctive 
should be understood. I do not think that the literary merit 
of the text should receive much attention. Many text books 
and teachers make a mistake in this matter. The whole atten- 
tion should be given to construction, forms, and rules. If the 
attention is diverted to other matters, good work will not be 
done where it should be. 

The last half of the spring term may, with profit, be devoted 
to Ovid, as a substitute for Caesar. When the pupil has com- 
pleted the course indicated, he will be prepared to read Cicero 
with profit and pleasure. Now is the time to study the litera- 
ture of the Latin language. The metaphors, similes, compari- 
sons and other beauties of the language should be noted and 
enjoyed. The same idea should prevail in the reading of Virgil, 
but still a few moments each day should be given to syntax and 
the discussion of poetic construction, but the Latin language as 
a whole should be taught. 

Of course, prose composition should be taught all through 
the four years, and at the close of the course, three or four weeks 
should be devoted to composition alone. This should be done 
in a systematic way, but should be very general, and continued 
until the student is able to write any statement in Latin with 
accuracy and readiness. 



FOXCROFT ACADEMY 39 

There should be a very thorough training of every student 
in Latin who proposes to enter college ; because the amount of 
time devoted to Latin in college is short. If a boy enters col- 
lege with an inadequate knowledge of Latin, he will certainly 
come out with imperfect knowledge of it. He certainly will not 
be fitted to teach it, and I hold this to be true that the teacher 
who has not the proper knowledge of Latin, is a sinner for whom 
no repentance is recognized. And if that student does not 
design to teach, he has lost the benefits resulting from a knowl- 
edge of the language, because he never can appreciate the beauty 
of the literature of the language, and the discipline the study 
engenders has never been received. 

I am every day expecting to read in some paper that Latin 
will be dropped and some milk and water affair substituted. I 
hope not, but would rather, if Greek is to entirely disappear, that 
more time should be devoted to the Latin. 

Greek is passing out, and it seems to me that the deathknell 
that tolls the passing of that sublime language, rings in a culture 
as far inferior to that as is a French novel to the unsurpassed 
poems of Homer. A people who invented the most beautiful 
architecture that ever existed, whose lines of beauty are unsur- 
passed, whose literature has been recognized for more than two 
thousand years as the model of all that can charm, instruct and 
adorn, should not in this age of progress be discarded without 
the concensus of opinion of those qualified to judge. 

If the Greek scholars of this country in convention should, 
after due deliberation, decide to discard Greek, because it is no 
longer conducive to scholarship and culture, then will be the 
proper time to substitute French for Greek. The pupils should 
never dictate a college curriculum. That college that cannot 
live without catering to the claims of those whose judgments 
are too immature to be of value, had better write hie jacit on the 
campus gate. If a knowledge of Greek literature does not refine 
the literary taste, does not cultivate the sublimest imagination, 
does not give a style obtainable in no other way, does not infuse 



40 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

into the very soul the living fire that burned on the altar of 
Minerva, then let Greek be dropped. But if it is to be excluded 
because it is too hard for the carpet-knight pupil of these days, 
because it takes the time that practical studies need, then let 
classical colleges be converted into schools of technology at once. 
French can never be of any practical use to the ordinary college 
graduate. If Greek is to be dropped, better leave the space once 
devoted to Greek in the catalogue, a complete blank adorned 
with an ancient urn closed and sealed. Let not the ashes of 
Homer be rudely violated by the chattering of any unpoetic 
modern. 

As long as the Christian religion remains in the world as 
the only power or influence that can lift humanity from the 
slough of ignorance and barbarism that today engulfs all non- 
Christian people, so long should Greek be read and taught, it 
seems to me. I can never disconnect the Greek from the religion 
of Christ. The rise and development of the Greek language 
was, I believe, a part of the new dispensation. There was a 
people of the same general parentage of all Europe. No his- 
torian can classify the influences that developed those simple 
men into the most refined people of the world. I have no doubt 
whatever but those people were as much commissioned to 
become factors in propagating the coming religion as Abraham 
was when God sent him forth to Paran's wilds. 

God inspired this people to love the beautiful, the symmetri- 
cal, the good, and the true. When the mind had been thus 
trained, it began to express itself in language fitted to the object 
that had absorbed that mind ; and thus came forth the Greek 
language. By means of that language, the most accurate one 
ever spoken, were recorded the words and acts of the most beau- 
tiful character ever on earth. No language could do that per- 
fectly except a God-ordained one. 

When those words and deeds of Christ and the disciples 
had been once recorded, then it came to pass that the Greeks 



FOXCROFT ACADEMY 41 

ceased to become a peculiar people. They fell back among the 
nations, to their natural level and began to speak a language in 
keeping with their mental and moral condition. These people 
ceased to speak the ancient Greek. That became a "dead 
language," and in that statement lies an important fact. A dead 
language never changes, never deteriorates. Hence that record 
mentioned can never become corrupted. 

This consideration makes the language a sacred one to me. 
Now from this point of view, and from that before mentioned, 
a conclusion comes that the world cannot afford to lose the influ- 
ence of the Greek language. 

Manv think that a further knowledge of the Latin will com- 
pensate for the loss of Greek. This idea is erroneous. "From 
the Greeks, and not from the Romans, we derive all that is beau- 
tiful in architecture." The Roman personality gives its own 
influence, a grand one ; but Rome can teach its own lesson alone. 
But still there would be something lacking, an indispensable 
something that nothing else but Greek can supply. Macaulay 
was right when he declared that the influence of Athens would 
be in its immortal youth when London had passed to nameless 
ruin. 

Among the pupils at Foxcroft were several who are before 
the public at the present time. There was a slim, tallish girl, 
attending who wore in her hat a small flag with Fremont's name 
on it. She was quite young, but active in all public matters ; 
would talk politics, temperance or religion with the older ones, 
and was a great favorite with the young men. She lived in a 
pretty house a mile or so out of the village, surrounded by pines 
and other trees. We knew her as Marilla Ames, and millions 
know her today, in America and Europe, as Mrs. L. M. N. 
Stevens. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Stevens sev- 
eral times within the past few years, and have listened to her 
eloquence with great pleasure. Se is not only a fine speaker, but 
a keen business woman ; and is doing a grand work for human- 
ity. 



42 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



There can be no question about the influence exerted by 
the organization she represents. Many a young man and 
innumerable young women have received the first impulse to 
become useful from the ministrations of the leaders in that order. 
Mrs. Stevens certainly shows that a woman can, with no adventi- 
tious aid, accomplish a great work among men. The doors 
through which females may pass to fields of usefulness and inde- 
pendence are wide open today. No young lady need feel obliged 
to marry who has a particle of independence. Of course, there 
are many who can never excel ; but even this ought not to dis- 
courage them, for only a small per cent of men succeed. The 
rest must be content to occupy unknown places in the world. 
Many women do become prominent, and these are not the excep- 
tions. They strike the average attained by men and ought to 
be satisfied with that. 

Uriah and C. C. Lee were among the first boys I came to 
know. C. C. Lee has been a teacher for many years. Lyman 
K. Lee, late principal of Foxcroft Academy, is his son. 

H. O. Pratt and Evans S. Pillsbury were among the stu- 
dents who showed that they possessed more than common abil- 
ity. Mr. Pratt was for two terms representative to Congress 
from Iowa ; and Mr. Pillsbury is district judge in California. J. 
F. Robinson of Bangor, was a sure prophet, even then, of what 
he has since become. S. O. Brown was the best declaimer in the 
school and a fine all-round scholar. Mr. Brown should have 
been a literary man. He would have been eminent, I am cer- 
tain. He has been a success as a business man, but he might 
have been more than that. It would be but natural for a man 
of my habits and pursuits to put a premium on intellectual 
achievements. Recognizing that only one man in a score or 
more has the natural ability adequate to guarantee success in 
purely intellectual lines, I feel that the world has lost something 
when business absorbs the attention of one who possesses that 
ability. 



FOXCROFT ACADEMY 43 

Col. Charles Clark was a fine scholar and showed in those 
days, some rare fighting qualities. I remember a very pretty 
girl whose name was Annie Kimball. She had her lessons 
perfectly prepared and was very smart, but she did like to teaze 
Mr. Belcher and sometimes adorned the front seat at his sug- 
gestion. Sarah Bailey, perhaps the most intellectual young lady 
I ever met, was a student of Foxcroft Academy at that time. L. 
H. Whittier of Guilford, recalls himself to my memory as a 
quiet, industrious student attending strictly to business. I 
remember a very pretty girl in the Latin class by the name of 
Lydia Brown. She attracted my attention very much. I sup- 
pose it was on account of the fact that my mother's name was 
Lydia. Higgins, all the old boys will remember as the janitor, 
who rang the bell and built the fires. 

One day Mr. Belcher said : "Higgins, increase the caloric." 
Higgins stood up and looked wildly around the room. Mr. Bel- 
cher repeated the request. Higgins scratched his head and 
rolled up his eyes, and said: "Sir?" twice. Mr. B. then said: 
"Replenish the fire." Higgins' face became a panorama of swift 
moving pictures for the next moment, at length, grasping the 
situation he rushed to the stove and put in some wood. 

One day the boys, at recess, tied Higgins to the bell rope 
and went in and left him. Mr. Belcher went out at last, and 
rescued the boy. Higgins would not tell who did it, and we did 
not volunteer any information. 

We use to play football but after a fashion of our own. 
Two boys chose sides and then the captains stood out in front, 
facing each other ; then the ball was tossed into the air and the 
fun commenced, one side kicking the ball in one direction, the 
rest in the opposite direction. No one was allowed to touch the 
ball with the hand after the first rush. One day Mr. Belcher 
was the captain opposed to me and, as I was rushing the ball 
along toward our goal, he got on my back to stop me ; I felt a 
slight incumbrance detaining me, but kept right on and kicked 



44 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



the ball home. I weighed one hundred and seventy and he 
about a hundred and ten. The boys called me "Atlas" for a 
time, as I had carried a world (of knowledge) on my shoulders. 

Elijah Pond, Frank Parsons and I hired a room and boarded 
ourselves, and attended school. I remember the difficulty I had, 
the first morning, to make the sheets fit the bedstead ; after sev- 
eral attempts I discovered that I had got them on cross-wise. 
Frank settled the coffee with half a pound of codfish skin. I 
made some toast by stewing some soft bread in milk for half an 
hour. We improved later on. 

W. T. Stubbs was a very busy student and always had his 
lessons. He was also a good debater. I am sure Mr. Stubbs 
would have made a successful literary or professional man had 
he thus devoted himself. He has been one of the trustees of 
Foxcroft Academy for some years. Mr. Stubbs was a very 
successful teacher in the West for many years. It was a loss 
to the educational world when he retired from the schoolroom. 

Alonzo Bunker was a very brilliant student. He graduated 
at Waterville College and became a missionary in India. Dr. 
Bunker is now in America. He was very effective in his work 
and is highly esteemed by a host of friends. I had the pleasure 
of eating turkey in his room at college when I was a freshman. 
His wicked chum, I suppose, furnished the turkey. 

J. H. Wing was a very breezy young man who was a great 
beau among the ladies. He took Horace Greeley's advice and 
went West. The Averill young ladies were very fine scholars. 
Miss Annie Averill has written poetry that places her among the 
inspired. Miss Mary Averill has been connected with schools 
for many years'. 

I visited her school, when supervisor, and found the school 
a model. The quiet, lady-like ways of the teacher, the scientific 
methods of instruction ; the thoroughness of the work, all made 
the schoolroom into a home where all were happy. I do not 
wonder that scholars sometimes do not like to attend school. 



FOXCROFT ACADEMY 45 

But a boy or girl that would loiter on his way to Miss Averill's 
school must be callous to all good influence. 

The school had among its students, one A. B. Stickney — a 
tall, active young man who took great delight in theatricals. 
Mr. Stickney is now a very wealthy railroad president out West, 
and the husband of an admirable wife who once lived in Dexter, 
and was a pupil of mine. 

Among the sweet faces of the young ladies I thought Miss 
Mary J. Thompson's was the sweetest. I was not then 
acquainted with her, but admired from a distance. Among the 
other young ladies was one Louise Campbell, a beautiful girl 
with glorious eyes. She became, later on, an active worker in 
the field of temperance and an advocate of Woman's Rights. 
She was much older than I, but I thought her sublime, wonder- 
ful, almost angelic. One night, after Lyceum, she asked me if 
she could ride home with me. I had to drive nearly four miles, 
the road passing by her father's house. Of course I consented, 
with stammering tongue and blushing cheeks. I never expected 
to attain to such happiness. I did not dare to help her into the 
wagon, but held the horse by the bits while she nimbly stepped 
into the carriage. 

We started. She was very gracious, but the bare thought 
that I was seated beside that beautiful, talented woman so 
paralyzed me that my ''right hand forgot its cunning" and could 
hardly guide the horse, and my "tongue cleaved to the roof of 
my mouth." I remember today every rod of that drive ; what 
she said going up the Hines' Hill ; how she talked about Venus, 
slowly descending in the west ; what she said about Mr. Spauld- 
ing's dooryard ; and her impressions of Mr. Hill, — how slowly 
I drove that last mile, and when we arrived at her home, I got 
out of the wagon and helped her down and drove the horse the 
rest of the way with the other hand. That woman never knew 
that she, that night, "Raised a mortal to the skies ;" but I felt 
sure my old horse "drew an angel" home. As I looked upon 



46 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Venus last night I again could see the glorious eyes of that rare 
young lady. 

Among the pupils was a black-eyed miss hailing from 
Brownville. Her name was Lizzie Nason. She became a 
teacher and taught for many years in Brownville. I suppose 
there is not a man forty years of age in Brownville today 
who cannot remember receiving at least one flogging adminis- 
tered by the vigorous hand of Lizzie. 

I visited her school several times and always found the 
strictest discipline. Her methods of teaching were good and 
progressive. Miss Nason now lives in the West. 

There was also a young lady from Brownville who had shot 
a bear and hence became a heroine among the boys but I noticed 
that she could throw a baseball no better than a village maiden. 
Some of the timid boys who lived on the street where she 
boarded used to walk home with her to be sure of a safe escort. 

From Sebec came a black-eyed boy whom I much enjoyed. 
His name was Cushing, Wainwright Cushing. He was a gen- 
tleman when a boy and has become one of our best known and 
highly respected citizens. 



CHAPTER V. 

FIRST SCHOOL. 

My first teaching- occurred in the town of Sangerville. It 
was in my own district. The schoolhouse was old, cold, and 
small. The floor slanted upward towards the back seats, where 
the big boys and girls sat. The aisles were always slippery. 
When the scholars came in at recess and passed up the aisles 
one or two were sure to slip down, precipitating several more 
into a common mass, from which heads, arms, and feet pro- 
truded. This caused some confusion at first but soon it seemed 
a part of the program, and ceased to cause any merriment. 

There were sixty pupils crowded into a space where thirty 
would have been sufficient. In one corner of the room there was 
a kind of box stall or throne, somewhat elevated from the com- 
mon floor. Here the teacher sat in all his glory when he was 
"monarch of all he surveyed." and it became his place of refuge 
when storms lowered around him. That desk was rather sacred 
even to the bad boy. In it usually were the teacher's books, 
some pieces of white chalk just as they came from the earth ; 
some bottles of ink, pens, writing books and sometimes a ferule 
and withe. This desk also became a prison house for roguish 
boys and giggling girls. 

The stove and funnel were divorced once a week regularly. 
The door was a marvel. There were four panels. No one of 
these was like any other. One was taken from a blue door, 
one from a yellow one, and another from a red one, and the last 
one put in was green. It seemed that almost every old house 



48 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

in the district had contributed some part of itself to patch up 
that old schoolhouse. 

There was a long back seat in the rear, on which sat a lot 
of large girls. I was very bashful, and the roguish girls liked 
to tease me. They would ask me to assist them in arithmetic, 
and when I sat down, they would sit up close beside me just to 
make me blush. 

I suffered much that winter in this way, but toward the 
close of school began to realize "blessed are the martyrs." 

There was a board running across the house, separating the 
boys from the girls ; on one side, perpendicular to the board, 
was a seat occupied by a girl, and on the opposite side sat a boy. 
One day I caught my brother kissing a girl across that board. 
My first thought was to punish him severely, but when I con- 
sidered that he was much larger than I, discretion suggested 
that no precipitate act should transpire. It is strange how our 
moral perceptions are biased by conditions. I also took into 
account the temptation. She was very pretty and those laugh- 
ing eyes always seemed to dare one to do desperate things. 
Those lips I had often thought were just made to kiss. The 
more I looked at her that afternoon the less wicked my brother 
seemed, and by the time school closed, I did not think him a bad 
boy at all, and so let him off with a mild reproof. Teachers, 
remember he was larger than I, and she was pretty. 

The agent's name was Edward Oakes. There were agents 
in those days. Perhaps the present system is better, but, in one 
respect it seems to fail. No one agent could have so many 
relations as three committeemen and a superintendent. 

Mr. Oakes was one of those very useful men in any com- 
munity. He never married. He used to beau the girls of his 
own age around till they got married, then he dropped back to 
the next product and did his duty to those. When these passed 
on, he was still in the field. By this time he was recognized as 
a confirmed bachelor, and hence was always sought after, so life 



FIRST SCHOOL 49 

became to him an every-day picnic. He never seemed old, and 
was everybody's friend. 

Dr. Simeon Mudgett was supervisor. I have his certificate 
before me. It says that "William S. Knowlton is a young man 
of good moral character, fitted by disposition to govern, and 
capable of teaching the branches taught in common schools, 
especially Arithmetic, Geography, Grammar, Reading and Spell- 
ing." It does not mention writing. 

I received seventeen dollars per month and boarded myself. 
The school was fifteen weeks long. Several of the scholars 
were older than I. There were higher algebra, the national 
arithmetic, and almost every study in vogue in that school. I 
never worked harder in the schoolroom. I think the school was 
fairly profitable, as schools then went. That old house is gone 
and two houses have been built since. 

I can see, in memory's reproducing mirror, just how those 
scholars looked, and how I taught. The small girls all stood up 
in a row in the floor, toeing a large crack which runs completely 
across the room. The girls all wore short dresses, and panta- 
lettes with frills round the bottom. The frills were starched 
stiff and projected downward at an angle of ninety degrees, and 
reached down to the tops of the boots. 

Some of the older girls wore hoops. Those were made of 
the same material as baskets were — brown ash — and sewed into 
the skirt. Crinoline had not made its appearance yet. A young 
lady then occupied a large portion of space, and when two hap- 
pened to meet in the narrow aisle there was always trouble to 
discover who had the right of way. 

My second school was in Dover, on the road to Dexter. 
It was a small, ungraded school. More than half of the pupils 
bore the name of Mitchell and Stanchfield. The Mitchell chil- 
dren were all very bright and industrious. There was one little 
boy in school who especially attracted my attention. He had a 
way of spelling every word with a rising inflection, thus: d-o-G, 
and he has been a rising man ever since he started in business. 

4 



50 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



His business powers are wonderful. He can make the wildest 
Western bronco into the mildest family horse in two hours — on 
paper. He is one of Caribou's town fathers now. 

While teaching that school, I saw the great comet of '58, 
for the first time while riding one night with my oldest pupil. 
We discussed it together. It made a deep impresson upon my 
mind. I never think of that comet without remembering that 
girl. Ah, well ! the comet came and went, and never returned 
to my gaze, and so did the girl. It seems the orbit of both were 
parabolic. 

There was a cat where I boarded that weighed fourteen 
pounds, and ate cheese. These were the chief events of that 
term of school, as I remember them. It was an uneventful term 
and most of the pupils have joined "the silent majority." The 
schoolhouse is still there, but only one man lives in the district 
that did in those days. 

I remember I took turns with the boys, building fires. I 
also remember there was a schoolhouse minister in the district 
who used to preach occasionally. He would stand in the floor 
and, with his long right hand, paddle himself round and round, 
so that he was back to the audience about half the time. He had 
a way of ending up every sentence with an "ur." One night 
he said "I have lived forty years on the Lord's sidur." The 
good old man tried to do his duty, but I think he could handle a 
plough better than he could the Scripture. 

I suppose it is a grave question whether or not a censor 
should be put upon the pulpit, as well as upon the press. Per- 
haps, since there are all kinds of hearers, there should be all 
kinds of preachers, but it appears, in a casual survey of the 
situation that, if a druggist has to study four years to learn how 
to supplement the knowledge of a doctor, who has studied four 
years, and a lawyer must study four or five years just to learn 
how to manage our financial affairs, that a clergyman who has 
the highest concerns of the human soul committed to his care, 
should devote himself to an equal educational preparation. 



FIRST SCHOOL 51 

My next school was in Abbot. This was a large graded 
school. War now threatened to destroy the peace of the coun- 
try. No young person in these days can understand the condi- 
tion of things in those days. Old friends became bitterest 
enemies ; brothers ceased to recognize their mother's sons ; 
societies were severed, and even churches dissolved. I boarded 
by chance with an intense Democrat. The Republicans of the 
village insisted that I should change my boarding place. This 
I refused to do without cause, and for a few days, there was 
much excitement. At length the excitement began to flag, and 
finally ceased altogether. 

There were some fine scholars in that school. I remember 
a girl about thirteen or fourteen years old. Every lesson was 
perfect, and her reasoning faculty remarkable. In later life, she 
became just what she promised to be. As the mind reflects 
upon the pupils in that single term of school, emotions of joy 
and sorrow arise in surging waves. That girl, Albina, who can 
estimate the good influence she has produced in the family cir- 
cle, in temperance work, in every cause calculated to lift up, 
ennoble and energize human thought. Another young lady 
afterwards became the wife of a college mate of mine, — a clergy- 
man of great ability, whose early death caused many eyes to 
weep. She was a lady of great capability and usefulness. 

There was a teacher who attended school a little while. 
She later married a Western man and went to his home soon 
after. More than twenty years after, it chanced I preached in 
the town of Abbot one Sunday, and was to receive for my 
"stipend" the whole contribution. The people were not many, 
the financial condition depressed, and that gaping hat disclosed, 
after it had painfully made the circuit of the house, just thirty- 
seven cents. Among the audience was the above mentioned 
teacher and her husband, who were visiting her brother. He 
had no money in his pocket on that occasion, but the next day 
he sent me a dollar. Think of it. my clerical readers ! What 
think ye of a man who would, unsolicited, a stranger, send a 



f 



52 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



contribution to a preacher under such circumstances? That 
dollar will ever remain one of the most precious treasures I ever 
possessed, always suggesting more optimistic views of the 
human soul. May perpetual fortune and happiness be the abid- 
ing guests of that Western home. 

One studious boy enlisted soon after school closed, and not 
long after slept beneath the flag he had died to defend. Everett 
Delano was the first pupil of mine to thus consecrate his young 
life to the preservation of the government of his native land. 
A fine scholar, a good boy, a patriot. My kindly remembrance 
of him will never fade. 

The measles closed that school in a summary manner. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FOXCROFT AFFAIRS. 

In August, i860, I united myself with the Baptist Church of 
Dover and Foxcroft. Rev. C. M. Herring was the pastor. I 
have never regretted that step. I firmly believe that it was the 
proper thing to do, and that great help has come to me there- 
from. 

I have never been able to discover why anyone should hesi- 
tate in this matter. It seems to me that religion, or rather, Chris- 
tianity, has made our civilization what it is, and, if it can help 
men in the mass, I cannot see why it may not individually. 

Further, the subject presents itself as a duty. If a duty, then 
neglect implies a loss. The subject has never seemed to me 
the mysterious, indefinite something that some people believe in. 
To strive to live according to the Sermon on the Mount, and 
practically be what Christ declared we may and ought to be, 
is a very sensible course of life. That created man should 
revere his Creator is honest, proper, and obligatory. 

When I was a student at the Academy at Foxcroft, I became 
quite well acquainted with A. G. Lebroke. He was always 
interested in every boy attending school who was striving to 
make the most of his opportunities. He himself wasted no time 
and had no patience with the idle or listless student. 

He, one day, called me into his office and talked to me for a 
full hour. 

I wish it were possible for any one to fully describe the char- 
acteristics of Augustus G. Lebroke. It never has been and never 
will be. I shall only try to give the impressions I received when 



54 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



a boy of eighteen. His earnestness and sincerity first impressed. 
His physique was the indispensable outward form for an orator. 
He made but few gestures in speaking, but when some especially 
brilliant thought was flashing from his mental consciousness 
through the medium of the brain and the tongue, the eye would 
light up with an electric glow, the whole face became illumi- 
nated, his words somehow breathed forth pathos, truth, convic- 
tion, and when that marvelous burst of eloquence had ceased, 
and the supercharged mind of the hearer had begun to recover a 
little ; a gentler strain took him over the same ground, and 
showed less astute reasoning and things easier to understand ; 
when all was fully comprehended, then occurred another flight of 
eloquence, loftier than the other, followed by more complete 
analysis and illustration. 

Mr. Lebroke's mind was so comprehensive in its grasp that 
every detail received recognition, and each part of the subject 
discussed was made to become an important factor, necessary 
to the whole. 

He attacked every position in front and on either flank at 
once, and enveloped the position by facts arranged in double 
columns with such impetuosity that unconditioned surrender 
quickly followed. His mind had such a tremendous grasp of 
facts which he could instantly group into logical order that his 
resources never failed. Many of those facts would seem trivial 
presented by any other man, but when he presented them in 
proper grouping, each one appeared an indispensable link for the 
complete chain of evidence. The "mole-hill" did become a 
"mountain," when he had sunk every surrounding argument to 
a sea-level. He did not, like many speakers, fight his way along 
point by point with a vigorous opponent, but sought to confound 
him at first by impetuosity of the attack, and the overwhelming 
array of superior forces, and each separate spear and lance were 
one by one hurled at the prostrate foe no longer capable of 
vigorous resistance. 



FOXCROFT AFFAIRS 55 

His words were remarkably well chosen, and though many, 
none seemed superfluous. His memory was remarkable. That 
enabled him to marshal his forces and leave no places or corners 
unprotected. His quotations were plentiful, and always served 
as a clinching stroke to the argument. In an arson case when 
a man was tried for burning a house in the night, when he had 
dwelt at length upon the enormity of the offense, the endanger- 
ing the lives of seven innocent women and children and exposing 
them to terrible torture and death, till the eyes of the jurymen 
fairly began to flash fire, he turned suddenly more directly to 
the jury and said, "Shall that fiend of revenge, darkness and 
death, stalk at midnight around our unprotected dwellings, 
crying, 'Sleep no more to all the house. Macbeth hath mur- 
dered sleep, Glamis hath murdered sleep.' Sleep no more, ye 
innocent babes in tired mother's arms. Sleep no more, wearied, 
laboring man ! Macbeth hath murdered sleep. The prisoner 
at the bar has living in his heart the lurid fires of hell that robs 
the eyes of sleep and banishes every thought of security." 

I recall that scene as vividly as though an event of yes- 
terday. 

Mr. Lebroke had many remarkable qualities. Among them 
was the happy faculty of being pathetic without descending to 
bathos. Few men can do this. How often have I heard 
speakers, seeking to move a heart to tears, instead provoke him 
to smiles. Mr. Lebroke never did this. He never descended 
to commonplace when lofty heights had been occupied. If the 
end found him there on the mountain top he stood and said the 
last word. Metaphor and simile were favorite weapons with 
him, and he used them judicially and forcibly. He was never 
coarse or common in his public address. His style could not 
be called strictly classical. There were no isolated exhibitions 
of eloquence for the sake of eloquence, but it was all eloquent. 
His style was most like that of Cicero in the second oration 
against Catiline. Had Mr. Lebroke received a thorough classi- 



56 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

cal education, he would have been, in my opinion, the greatest 
orator Maine ever produced. 

One day he showed the grasp of his mind to me in an hour's 
talk upon the Bible as the foundation of all law. He discussed 
the Levitical Law, the Judges, the prophets, the new Dispensa- 
tion, Paul's expositions of law and Peter's thesis. He grouped 
all these together in such manner as was marvelous to me. He 
closed his remarks by saying that every law student should 
spend many months in Bible study before he opened Blackstone. 
His sympathies were for all, but he most liked to assist the boy 
who had his own way to make in the world. He would spend 
hours talking to such, and rarely refused his council. His sense 
of humor was keen, and he could tell a commonplace story in 
such a manner that it seemed new and striking. Of course no 
one will think that I have attempted to write a memorial of 
A. G. Lebroke, or even to approach it. I have simply talked 
about a marvelous man that I knew when a boy as I remember 
him. His public career is too well known to be noticed in a 
reminiscence of this kind. The world knows that he was a very 
successful lawyer, an astute politician and a safe legislator. He 
would nave made an excellent judge. His capabilities would 
have put him in the United States Senate. 



CHAPTER VII. 

COLLEGE. 

At the close of the spring term of Foxcroft Academy, I 
decided to enter college. I spent most of the summer reviewing 
my studies. At Commencement time, S. T. Pullen and I started 
for Waterville with a sort of compromise team. I furnished 
my father's horse, and he, his father's carriage. We stopped 
at Pittsfield for dinner, arriving at Waterville at six o'clock. 
We were examined the next day when Mr. Pullen, two others 
and myself were admitted without conditions. The rest of the 
class had assignments to be made up later. I have always been 
very glad that I decided to secure a college education. That 
education has not only been a means of livelihood, but has 
afforded me most exquisite pleasure. But on that momentous 
occasion, when I sat in that gloomy recitation room, I had quite 
a mind to withdraw and go home. Had I failed to pass, I am 
sure I would never have tried again. I remember now just 
what my examination was. I can repeat the Greek poem which 
Prof. Foster asked me to read. He requested me to scan a line 
of Virgil. Now it is well known that there are six feet in every 
line of Virgil, but I felt generous on that occasion and gave the 
astonished Professor seven feet. It was a mistake on my part. 
He said six was enough. Prof, was always a little fussy. 

By kind permission of Herbert C. Libby, I quote an article 
here that some years ago I wrote for "Colby Stories." 



58 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

TOM AND SMITH. 

"One day in July, i860, a carriage passed slowly down 
College street drawn by a dusty black horse, and containing two 
very anxious looking boys. The cause of their anxiety was 
two-fold, — examination next day, and a desire to find a black- 
smith shop. The shop was soon discovered and a shoe set on 
the said horse. And when the financier of the duet demurred 
at the price, fifty cents, the begrimed son of Vulcan informed 
them that it was 'Commencement Week,' and horseshoeing was 
on the cornua taurorum. 'Dies irae occurred the next day in 
the Plutonean abodes of the old Chapel, concerning which 
animus meminisse horret. 

"By the way, the platform in that underground room became 
decayed and a motherly-looking toad had a home there, and she 
came out every day to hear Waldron's essay in the rhetoric 
class. One summer the wicked boys put ten toads under the 
platform and waited for the Prof, to come. All were quiet 
enough till Brackett began to read Latin. They couldn't stand 
that anyhow, so out they came and hopped for the door at full 
speed. 'The effect was electrical.' There were few X's that 
term. 

"On Commencement Day those two adventuresome youths 
were allowed to follow at a respectful distance the awe-inspiring 
Sophs down to the church. The boys discovered some very 
original characters among them. During the halt of the pro- 
cession, one of the Sophs stepped back and asked Smith in a 
very peremptory manner, 'How did you get that hump on your 
back?' Fresh replied that the Almighty had put it there. The 
Soph seemed to be astonished that it should have been done 
without his consent. He then demanded of Tom — 'Why in 
thunder do you wear glasses?' Tom said he was near-sighted. 
The Soph was still dissatisfied, and said so. There used to be 
a tradition around the college that the habit of inquisitiveness 
commenced very young with him. His first inquiry was, why 



COLLEGE 59 

he didn't have two mouths as well as two eyes, and his next 
sentence criticised his father for not wearing more clothes on 
the top of his head. 

"Soon another Soph stepped back and seemed anxious to 
know where they had left their 'horns' when they came to col- 
lege. Smith timidly asked what he meant, and received for an 
answer that 'cattle' from the country always had horns. Smith 
replied that he was a 'buffalo' and didn't have horns, and later 
on showed said Soph that he was a vigorous kicker if he couldn't 
hook. 

"Another small, back-eyed, blaick-haired. pretty little Soph 
attracted their attention. He said nothing to them but every 
hair on his aristocratic head seemed to say, procul, procul, este, 
ye Freshmen ! He is a great man now and occupies a high 
position. 

"The two Freshmen looked down the line ahead and noticed 
in the Junior class a dark-haired man. tall, rather good looking, 
and modest. Smith afterward learned that the name of that 
Junior was Isaiah Record. Later he roomed opposite him in 
North College ; he further learned that Mr. Record was the 
noblest man he ever knew. Conscience in him was the ruling 
power. Nor was he a cad. 

"On one occasion when the faculty, disregarding the wise 
counsels of the students, employed an unregenerate man to cut 
the grass on the campus, the boys sent Somnus to the ivory gate 
and helped the faculty out by cutting the grass themselves by 
moonlight. Every boy practiced in that star-pictured gym. that 
night. Record and Barker excepted. Barker unfortunately slept 
over, and Record stayed in his room and interviewed conscience. 
He reproved no one in the matter, and it was all talked over 
before him with perfect freedom. There was no Pharisaical 
spirit in him. In after years Smith sat by his bedside, with tears 
coursing down his face, received his last farewells, and has 
found less on earth to enjoy ever since. 



60 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

"A strange circumstance was connected with Mr. Record's 
funeral. At one commencement, Annie Louise Carey sang. In 
the gallery sat Isaiah Record, Rev. A. C. Herrick, Paymaster 
Barton, U. S. N., and Smith. At the close of the concert, the 
four adjourned to the hotel and talked till two o'clock. They 
were to separate next morning. One was going to Japan, one 
to California, Record to Houlton, and Smith to Massachusetts. 
As they parted that night Mr. Record said, 'When shall we four 
meet again?' One dark day later, the body of Isaiah Record 
lay at rest in a casket, in the vestibule of the church at Houlton. 
Gazing sadly down upon those noble features, stood Smith, when 
upon the right and left stepped simultaneously Mr. Barton and 
Mr. Herrick, and as they mutely and tearfully clasped hands, 
they felt they had all met again. (W. S. Knowlton is now the 
only survivor.) 

"The peculiar laugh of a Soph attracted the boys' attention 
next. He had a perfect Grecian face and a smile that was 
exhilarating. Some one called him Thomas. He was a fine 
fellow and liked a joke. One day the president called him up 
on review in Butler's Analogy and told him to pass on to the 
'Future Life.' Thomas promptly responded, 'Not prepared, sir.' 

"Gazing further down the line Smith saw what seemed a 
human head seated on top of a tall pole, but a rift in the crowd 
showed that it was a human form divine, but not 'divinely fair.' 
He heard 'Mac' declaim later on in the Chapel when he, with his 
head ad astras, in a sort of piping, grunting voice, said, — 'It is 
strange how little some people know about the stars.' 

"Had 'Mac' lived in Job's days he could have sung with 
the 'Morning Stars.' 

"While waiting at the church Smith took a good look at 
his classmates. Near him stood Seeley, — a harmless little fellow. 
He had a brother in the Sophomore class who was a genius. 
He went up into Aroostook county to farm and preach. He 
was a far better farmer than preacher. He made a failure of 
farming. One day he was ploughing on the side of a steep hill 



COLLEGE 6l 

with a pair of steers. Ihe cattle were untrained and he didn't 
know how to drive. The steers would 'turn the yoke,' thus half 
the time they faced the plow. To prevent this movement he 
tied their tails together, and at noon unyoked them thus united 
a tergo. One started east, the other west. For a time action 
and reaction were equal ; at last one fell down, the other hauled 
him down the mountain by the adhesive force of the caudal 
vertebrae. 

"The sight was inspiring. The bos on pedes, ferens caput 
altum cornibus, snorting victory with every wild leap; the bos 
on dorsum, roaring with disgust and marking the dust with his 
horns like Hector's spear. 

"Brother Seeley gazed calmly on the scene and gently whis- 
pered, 'Descensus Averno facile est,' and next Sabbath took for 
his text — 'Be not unequally yoked together.' 

"Next to Seeley stood a tall, finely proportioned man who 
to-day wears the insignia of a Major General, U. S. A., — H. C. 
Merriam. He and Smith were great friends later on ; Merriam 
liked a joke and so did Smith. In those days the Junior class 
doled out an original declamation in the Chapel every spring. 
The other classes must attend or be fined ten cents. The whole 
thing was a bore. The night before '63 spoke, Merriam and 
Smith went down town and 'borrowed' from Mr. Merryfield's 
back shop a huge cloth sign. 

"The heraldic emblem on said cloth was a life-size picture 
of an elephant. The boys added a legend, reading, 'Elephant 
Show — $.10 admission,' and nailed the advertisement high above 
the Chapel door. The third-year men were not pleased a whit, 
but the Profs thought it a grand good joke. You see, they were 
not in it. 

"The General fixed this all up with Mr. Merriam last Com- 
mencement. The General was a good scholar and wrote poetry 
sometimes. There were two or three more poets in the class. They 
belonged to different schools of poetry. David said if he got 
the rhyme all right, he didn't care for the metre. Harry said 



62 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

if he got the metre all right, he didn't care for the rhyme. And 
Smith also wrote one poetic translation of Horace. It was Ode 
XVI, and here is a specimen of it: 

"O ! bewitching filia, 
Handsomer than your mamma ! 
How could I such an onus prove 
To write Iambics 'bout my love ! 
Burn those verses, every speck; 
Dump them in the Kennebec. 
When Prometheus made my head, 
Softer than a loaf of bread, 
In my bosom he put this : 
Vim insani leonis. 

"Smith bet the peanuts he would read it in the class. Prof. 
Foster was rash enough to call him up on the advance and Smith 
read the whole thing through. 

" 'Sit down, young man !' 

"Result — Ten minus the one. 

"Smith never wrote poetry afterwards. 

"Nearby stood Mayo. He was a very rigid man in morals. 
One night when 'town and gown' were discussing how hard a 
blow it required to paralyze the brain, Mayo received a severe 
shock from a club in the hands of a 'yager.' He brought up 
reinforcements and threw said 'yager' into a muddy pool. The 
'yager' naturally swore. Mayo remarked, 'Look here, this is a 
Baptist institution and swearing is not allowed. Chuck him in 
again, boys !' And in he went until the profanity was all washed 
out of him. 

"A little behind stood Young of Calais. He had a witty 
way of putting things. When Weston's name appeared in the 
catalogue with a f before it, Young said, 'Weston must be a 
mighty good man ; he bears his cross daily.' 

"Just behind Tom stood a girlish-looking boy. His name 
was Ljttlefield. Studious, talented, he carried off most of the 
honors. He was verv absent minded. A club of twelve once 



COLLEGE 63 

boarded with a lady who frequently reminded them that she had 
seen better days. Before the term was over the boys thought 
they had. Now there boarded at the place a very prim lady 
whose age had never been accurately ascertained. Littlefield sat 
beside her. One day in the heat of argument he placed his arm 
on the back of her chair. She sat up a little primly ; he became 
a little excited and proceeded to put his arm around her, and 
soon was emphasizing every remark by an unmistakable hug, 
all unconscious that he was disregarding proprieties. Smith 
will never forget the expression on that woman's face. Glorious 
Littlefield ! The daisies adorn his grave to-day. 

" 'Green be the turf above thee, friend of my better days.' 

"Just here the procession moved on ; the two boys were lost 
in the crowd and Smith has never emerged therefrom." 

There were thirty-five in our class. Most of them were 
young men of good ability and studious in habit. In those days 
there were some conditions that seem very strange in these days. 
No preparation in Geometry was required, and the class were 
forced over six books in twelve weeks. That class recited at 
six o'clock in the morning. Think of it ! Six o'clock ! We 
had to learn the lesson the night before, hence we were very 
sleepy in the morning. Many a time I have been in bed when 
the bell ceased to toll. Out of bed we jumped, pulled on our 
pants and boots, wrapped a long shawl around the shoulders, 
and minus stockings, coat and vest, raced for the chapel, where 
the Prex. read a chapter and offered prayer. Perhaps that was 
a profitable service, but it was rather difficult to concentrate the 
whole soul upon religious lines with the sword of Damocles in 
the form of Davies Legendre hanging over one. After reciting 
we went to the rooms and dressed for breakfast. The amount 
eaten was proportionate to the result of the attempt to recite in 
Geometry. If a boy took but one egg we knew there had been 
some trouble in readily quoting from the text book. If he took 



64 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

no egg at all, a dead flunk had predestinated the condition, we 
knew. 

There were some very fine boys in the class. When the 
spring term was nearly finished the boys began to enlist in the 
army. The faculty was patriotic, but did not like to lose the 
students. Nearly half of our class enlisted. The President finally 
sent us all home without examination. Those that did not enlist 
came back for the spring term, but the class was small and at 
graduation we were only eight. As far as I know, only four 
survive. N. C. Breckett was one of my chums. He was for 
many years president of a college for colored people in Vir- 
ginia, and is enjoying his otium cum dignitate in his native town. 

Freeman, who fancied he resembled Daniel Webster in 
looks, was in Oregon to the last of my knowledge. 

The irrepressible Waldron, the much engaged man, was 
living in Ohio a few years ago. 

S. T. Pullen, my room-mate the first term, is living in Port- 
land. Mr. Pullen has occupied prominent places in the political 
and commercial world. 

Gen. H. C. Merriam was a member of the class. He was a 
fine mathematician and a poet withal. I suppose we look upon 
him as the big man of the class, whose glory will redeem it from 
oblivion. 

A. H. Keezer was the best dressed man, and a great beau 
among the ladies. 

E. C. Littlefield was, in my opinion, the most intellectual boy 
in the class or college. He died a year after graduation with 
brain fever. 

Cushing was a grand good fellow, and so was H. M. Pratt, 
but they left us long ago. 

I was class poet at the time of graduation, and Littlefield 
was orator. I had just recovered from typhoid fever at Com- 
mencement, and Littlefield's brother was killed in battle at that 
time, so the class day exercises were omitted. 



COLLEGE 



65 



One circumstance connected with that fever I have never 
forgotten. Dr. Boutelle attended me for seven weeks, day and 
night, and furnished me some medicine and presented me with 
a bill for nineteen dollars. I hope the Doctor knows in heaven 
how much benefit that kind act of his did me. I shall ever have 
a green spot in my soul for Dr. Boutelle. 

I remember another event of that sickness. Waldron was to 
be my nurse one night, and promised to come at ten o'clock. 
My mother went to bed in a remote part of the house at a quarter 
of ten. Ten o'clock came but no Waldron ; eleven slowly passed 
by, then twelve and so on until morning. I lived many years 
during that night. The explanation was this: Waldron went 
to see his girl and became so absorbed that he entirely forgot 
me, and that absorption was so complete that even when he had 
torn himself away and said good-night for the twentieth time, 
he went in a sort of ecstatic condition to college and never 
thought of the poor fellow in the delirium of fever. That girl 
never looked pretty to me after that. 

The class has never received any honors from the college. 
There have been several D. D. and LL. D. given members of 
classes graduating since. I do not know under just what con- 
ditions those honors are given, and hence ought not to discuss 
it. I have always thought, however, they struck as lightning 
does. Lightning sometimes strikes a tall oak and sometimes 
a puny alder. 

The D. K. E. society did me the honor of inviting me to join 
it. I did so and have never regretted the act. I fully believe 
in college societies, and regard college life as incomplete unasso- 
ciated with a society. It may not be easy to define the reasons 
for this conclusion, but every member of the society fully appre- 
ciates the benefits. If the society is a proper one, it is a safe- 
guard, a home, a shrine, and in some cases, the college. I have 
never lost interest in our society, and enjoy beyond measure 
meeting the old and new boys whenever I can. I have prepared 
quite a large number of boy=; for college, most of whom have 

5 



66 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

shown in practical life that no mistake was made when they went 
to college. I have had boys in Bowdoin, Amherst, Colby, Bates, 
Harvard and University of Maine. I still believe in a college 
education when the pupil has the capital to commence with. It 
is a foolish thing for a young man to attempt to attend a college 
who has no mental capacity. Study never produces, but simply 
trains and sharpens what God created. 

As I review college life, how many things seem callow, pre- 
sumptuous and almost silly, but they did not then. All our 
presumption and zeal was a part of the conditions of things of 
our ages, and the accumulation of a high self estimate. It 
naturally follows that when one or two hundred boys meet 
together, each one possessing just a small per cent of conceit, 
that the percentage will run up quite far. Well, suppose it does ? 
Who is injured? Let the boys still enjoy their world with all 
its freshness. It would not be college without it. Let them 
feel that the illimitable universe is every day regulated by their 
desire and needs. We had our day. We swaggered and fought 
our battles of more importance than Waterloo or Sedan, reveled 
in veal and enjoyed it. So say I, let the college boy of to-day 
have his fling. Veal will become beef in due time. I enjoy 
the boys as they are. 

At last Commencement, after the public services were over, 
I met some of the boys at the Chapter House and spent two or 
three hours with them and enjoyed the occasion very much. As 
we sat around that fireplace, I saw fields of usefulness, positions 
of importance, sacred trust awaiting those young men in the 
great world beyond college walls. If ever I offered an earnest, 
heartfelt prayer to the Master, it was when I retired that night, 
that they might be kept from sin, that the high ambition animat- 
ing their souls might find its highest fulfillment in a life of use- 
fulness, honor and success. I shall probably never meet many of 
those young men again, but feel sure the world will honor them 
when the writer of these lines "shall sleep in cold oblivion." 
Then we say, let them go to college and be a college boy while 



COLLEGE 67 

there and then go for work for joy and sorrow as the Father 
wills. 

I look back to my college life with pleasure, on the whole. 
There were dark spots which I still remember but care not to 
recall them. My health was the chief drawback, and sometimes 
a lack of funds did not cast a roseate light upon the pathway. 
TUit. on the whole, I enjoyed college life very much. I always 
enjoyed studying. I was a good average scholar, excelling in 
Mathematics and Rhetoric. I did then just what I should 
recommend a student to do now. 

I suggest that he be a first-class scholar and simply that ; 
then spend what time he can spare from athletics, in reading, 
reading, reading. In advising this course, I mean reading of the 
old English classics, poetry, history, essays and lectures. But 
more than this, he should read some modern books as a sort of 
pastime. There are a few modern books worth reading and 
these should be read : but in reading many of them there is no 
profit. Those one does read should be selected with care and read 
with a deliberate purpose. What I mean is this : If a pupil reads 
Addison the purpose should be to enjoy the style. Read with 
such a purpose, the essays will insensibly steal into the percep- 
tion and refine the style of the student. Macaulay should be 
read with the same purpose in mind, but when a person reads 
David Harum he should do so simply for mental rest and diver- 
sion, and that fixed purpose should be ever before him, then the 
reading will do no harm ; but the book should be forgotten as 
soon as possible. A constant reading of such books would lead 
to intellectual imbecility. 

I was obliged to be out of college, teaching, nearly halt the 
time, and made up those terms. Most of the professors I liked 
very much. There was an individuality about each that I recall 
distinctly. Professor Hamlin pleased me the most. He had 
a personal interest in every student, and was not afraid to show 
it. I remember he called me to the desk one day and asked 
about my health and suggested some treatment. Stern and 



68 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

exacting in the recitation room though he was, we all felt that 
he was just and kind, and that all received the same treatment. 

Dr. Champlin was never a favorite with the boys, but I 
rather liked him. 

The Doctor had a grim sense of humor which showed itself 
occasionally, and he appreciated a joke, even at his own expense. 
One day he gave us a very long lesson in Butler's Analogy — 
one paragraph in the lesson said that a man would try with all 
his might to do a thing, though the chances were ten to one 
against him. I recited that paragraph when the Doctor said : 
"Give a practical illustration." I replied : "For a student to try 
to get such an outrageous lesson as this." The old Doctor at 
first frowned, then drew his face down several inches and a grim 
smile began slowly to jump from wrinkle to wrinkle, and he 
said : "It seems you did succeed." I had the great pleasure of 
entertaining Dr. Champlin at my house for a week once, and 
never enjoyed a man more. I shall never forget a scene on the 
campus, right before the old chapel. Gen. Martel, the janitor, 
one day became very much intoxicated and wanted to leave. 
Dr. C. did not want him to go in that condition, so would not 
pay him. The General, who weighed two hundred and fifty 
pounds, walked up to Dr. Champlin, who weighed over two 
hundred pounds, and, shaking his fist in the Doctor's face, said : 
"Dr. Shamplain, you pay me or I spile your face !" The boys 
got around the General and led him away. The bets among the 
boys were about equal. 

The President had a funny way of selecting Scripture for 
the morning lesson. One day, when some of the boys left town 
to avoid too intimate acquaintance with the Constable, the Doctor 
read : "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." Another time 
he read : "They that were drunken are drunken in the night." 
That morning two young men had been suspended for indulging 
in the flowing bowl. When a large freshman class came in he 
read : "How are they increased that trouble me !" 



COLLEGE 69 

I have had the pleasure of knowing every President who 
has presided at Colby since i860. I thought Dr. Robbins a man 
of the best intentions. I never listened to a more interesting 
man than Dr. Small. Every sentence he uttered was a Grecian 
model ; not one word not the best, every sentence in perfect logi- 
cal order, and every thought following some suggested idea. 
Dr. Small is a great man. and is so regarded by men better quali- 
fied to judge than I. 

One might, perhaps, reverence Dr. Small more than love 
him. Of Dr. Butler I have the pleasantest recollection. I 
admired the man for his kindly sympathy, his keen intellect and 
logical mind. 

Dr. Whitman was a good friend of mine and I dearly loved 
him. A man of superior intellect, of great heart, of rare elo- 
quence, he left impressions wherever he went that were lasting 
for good. I shall not attempt to describe Dr. Pepper. I shall 
say but a word, simply quoting from the Book of Job, — "Canst 
thou loose the bands of Orion," etc. I shall attempt neither 
impossible task. I know Dr. White quite well, and enjoy the 
man, respect the clergyman, and admire the scholar. The 
Doctor is a rare speaker and impresses his audience with the 
sincerity of his convictions and the soundness of his logic. 

Of course, I know nothing about the administrations of 
these presidents. I knew them simply as I met them in public 
places and at my home ; and certainly I can assert that they were 
men of noble character, large ability and earnest piety. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ATKINSON. 

I next became the teacher of the graded school at Atkinson. 
The town had no village. There was a Corner, and the Mills, 
situated about two miles further south. I never could discover 
certainly^why a collection of houses and people is called a village 
in one town and a larger collection in another town, is simply 
dubbed a "Corner." 

It seems to be a fact worth remembering that one's estima- 
tion of himself is always higher than others are willing to grant. 
Just as long as the people at a Corner call it a Corner, so long 
will other people call it so. But let the people living where sev- 
eral roads meet begin to call the dozen or twenty houses there 
a Village, all the world will dignify it by that title. 

I have noticed, also, that just as soon as a Corner becomes a 
Village, great changes begin to take place, within the houses, 
and in the newly-born Village. Lace curtains replace the paper 
ones, front yards become lawns and fresh paint is in evidence ; 
and a Meeting House springs up, — another blacksmith shop 
sends up its black smoke and silk hats appear. All these things 
would not have been had not some ambitious man or woman, 
with prophetic inspiration called that collection of houses, a 
Village. Shakespeare asks "What's in a name," Why, — a 
good deal, sometimes everything! 

I taught at Atkinson Corner and Richard C. Shannon taught 
at the Mills. We boarded together at a half-way house. Mr. 
Shannon was a Senior and I a Freshman at Waterville College 
and he was a man of note at that time. He was the best athlete 



ATKINSON 71 

in college, took first prize in Junior Exhibition, and was honored 
with a Junior part. He was an excellent reader and the central 
star in the reading circle that winter. He used to read Dean 
Swift to me evenings, much to my edification. 

That was his first experience in country life and some things 
struck him as peculiar. He went out into the barn one day, and 
noticed how the cattle were fastened to the stanchion, and came 
in and indignantly protested against chaining cattle up by the 
neck. 

It was also his first attempt at teaching. The scholars 
thought some of his methods a little too original. He had a pair 
of parallel bars built and trained the boys after school in gym- 
nastics. His farm constituency wanted the boys to chop wood 
and milk the cows, so that apparatus disappeared one night, 
and Brother Shannon was very much disgusted. He would 
have been much more so had- he seen it, as I did next summer, 
serving ignominiously as a hen roost. 

In the following spring Mr. Shannon enlisted in the army 
and served during the war, with distinction, becoming Colonel. 
He afterwards travelled extensively in South America, and held 
important offices in Brazil. After spending some time in Europe, 
he came to Xew York and commenced the practice of the law, 
and was elected to Congress and held the position for four years 
and was on important committees, and ranks high among his 
fellow members. Six years ago he gave fifteen thousand dollars 
to build the Shannon Observatory at Colby. Mr. S. was a mem- 
ber of the D. K. E. fraternity and took much interest in the wel- 
fare of the society and has ever been a stout supporter of his 
Alma Mater. Mr. Shannon is a man of superior ability and 
kindly spirit and a gentleman of pronounced type. He has 
amassed a large fortune and has a home where every refinement 
adorns. 

The school at Atkinson was a good one, and was enjoyed by 
the teacher. Among the pupils was a bright-eyed girl of ten, 
whom I especially remember. No lesson seemed too hard for 



72 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

her. That sweet smile still remains in memory's grasp and the 
innocence of that fine face was that of the Madonna. Sweet 
Mamie Ford ! How I missed that girl when she happened to 
be absent. In fact, in the whole development of the human face 
there is none that can compare with the face of a girl of ten or 
eleven years of age. Younger, there is too much of the child 
in the face ; at an older age, too much of the world appears to 
mar the picture I am trying to paint. The first bud of girlhood 
is getting ready to unfold. There is all the sweet programme 
that afterwards is spread abroad to the world, infolded in the 
soul, closely hidden there. Purity, love, sweetness, innocence, 
every attribute that Heaven can lend to mortals in harmonious 
commingling, beautify, spiritualize and glorify the face of the 
sweet girl of this period of life. 

If I ever felt like becoming an idolator, it has been when I 
have seen girls like this. They seem nearer to the Divine than 
any created object. I do not say a girl of that age is the most 
fascinating of all, but do claim that she is more adorable than 
at any other. Happy is she if she has a mother who keeps her 
thus as long as possible. Would that every mother could under- 
stand that there is an angel in the household while her sweet 
child is standing "where the brook and river meet," and that, 
like Asturia, that angel disappears when "knowledge comes and 
wisdom lingers." Not all girls would be recognized by my 
description. Many are premature in knowledge; some are 
stupid ; some hereditarily depraved, and others are characterless. 
But many there are who ought to be recognized as special gifts 
from God. 

Dickens, with all his marvelous genius, never wrote as well 
as in describing the life and death of Little Nell. 

There was another girl in school, somewhat older, with the 
brightest black eyes. Her name was Alice, a sweet name. I 
expected her to be nice, having that name, and she was. I never 
could quite disassociate a name from an ideal which I have asso- 
ciated with the name and have been terribly shocked sometimes 



ATKINSON 73 

to find that some coarse, loud, violent girl had been christened 
"Gertrude," or "Mary," or "Lucy." They should have been 
called "Joan," or "Martha," or "Belinda." 

There was a small boy in the school that justified my concep- 
tion. His name was Fremont, and he had all the aggressiveness 
of that restless campaigner. He was informed one day that his 
place was in the floor. He allowed that he would not go, and it 
became necessary for me to show him that superior force could 
overcome inferior resistance ; and he came out. I don't know 
the after history of that boy, but feel sure that, unless his dis- 
cretion has increased, he will find his journey through life some- 
what thorny. 

There was another Mary, sixteen years old, who was very 
bright and deserved the name. Louise has always seemed a 
charming name, and as almost every girl by that name that 
attended school was a blonde, so the Louise of that school was 
very fair and exceedingly talented. She would have made a 
college professor. Hittie looked so much like her sister Alice 
that I could not distinguish one from the other. Hittie was 
generally in mischief, and when I called out sharply, "Alice!" 
by mistake, the painful surprise on Alice's face used to haunt 
me nights. 

A slender, pale-faced boy of thirteen showed many of the 
traits that have made him a success in life. He was very stu- 
dious and obedient. His chief point was mathematics. He 
became a physician of extensive practice, and can sing a song or 
take off an arm, with equal grace. His avoirdupois shows that 
he has never lacked for good living. 

Dr. Ford is now one of the associate physicians in the Sana- 
torium at Moosehead Lake. The Doctor is very popular in his 
profession. "May his shadow never grow less!" 

One day there appeared in the schoolroom a very tall, black- 
haired young man of striking appearance. He desired to study 
Latin. I can see that young man now, as he appeared on that 
occasion. His hair was cut short, and every spear stood straight 



74 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



up, pointing skyward. There was an individuality about his 
hair that marked the man. His absorbing power was marvel- 
ous. Whole pages of Latin Grammar seemed but to whet his 
appetite for more, until the length of the lesson had to be 
adjusted to the time the teacher could allot to him. His reason- 
ing faculties were equally good. He was what we sometimes 
call "a natural scholar." He would have made an excellent 
college president, but then the State would have lost an admi- 
rable librarian. This same boy appeared to me later in another 
school, where he changed his devotion from Mars to Venus. 
I shall speak of him again. 

Mr. Carver had a mind decidedly logical. There was 
method in all that he did. His use of the right word in recitation 
seemed the result of intuition rather than of training. That 
careful attention to detail which has made him such an admirable 
librarian was very marked. 

With that school disappeared many of the names that had 
been familiar. Hitherto the politics and religious preference 
of the parents could be ascertained by many of the names of the 
scholars; — John Fairfield, A. K. P. Paris, Bion Bradbury, 
Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson ; all told that the father 
voted the Democratic ticket. Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor 
informed the world that the parent belonged to the forlorn Whig 
party. I was sure that John Wesley belonged to a Methodist 
family and that John Calvin's father was a follower of that 
stern Reformer. The George Washingtons, alas! disappeared. 
Whether or not there has been less truthfulness in school I 
cannot tell. 

By the way, I object to the shattering of my youthful idol by 
those remorseless vandals who magnify every trait and habit of 
Washington that would detract from his ideal life. What good 
can come from proclaiming the fact, if it be a fact, that Wash- 
ington did sometimes swear, under great provocation? Thou- 
sands of boys have been kept from swearing by being told that 
Washington never swore. 



ATKINSON 75 

Every nation has some patron saint, a character that boys 
may imitate. What better one than Washington ? 

A story was published, a few years ago, by the author of 
"The Honorable Peter Stirling," that perfectly disgusted me in 
an attempt to glorify Washington by claiming for him many 
objectionable characteristics. 

Let the boy still believe in the hatchet story,— that Washing- 
ton could jump twenty feet,— and that he never swore. 

And some "Gadgrind" idiots would destroy every ideal of 
childhood and banish Santa Claus to the barbaric ages of King 
Thor. The attempt is positively wicked. Santa Claus is the 
first supernatural existence appealing to the child's mind. His 
faith in Santa Claus is implicit. His moral conduct is regulated 
by Santa's wishes. The boy, through him, learns, for the first 
time, to have faith in a semi-spiritual agency. Why destroy all 
the fond fantasies of a thousand years? And just to please a 
few fanatical philosophers who would take all the poetry out of 
life, destroy every air-castle, and repress every flight of the 
imagination. 

There is no attribute of the human mind that conserves 
greater and grander purposes and results than arise from the 
proper use of the imagination. It should never be repressed, 
but should be directed, cultivated, refined and combined with 
other mental faculties. 

Of course, if the imagination is allowed to run loose, it will 
run riot and lead to mendacity and story telling. But such con- 
dition need never exist. The person who fatally is lacking in 
imaginative power will never rise above the veriest common- 
place. This world becomes a very small planet to such. Even 
the stars are only bright spots in the sky if we see in them only 
stars. 

The war changed the political standing of many parents. 
New issues arose and gradually the old custom of naming a 
boy after somebody ceased. I am sorry the habit of perpetu- 
ating a family Christian name no longer prevails. Isaiah led 



y6 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

off in our family for several generations, but finally the mantle 
fell upon the bachelor brother, and a prophet no longer appears 
in the family. 

I am sorry that young ladies feel called upon to abbreviate 
their names. Gertrude is euphonious, Gertie is harsh ; Marga- 
ret is a sweet name, Maggie is flat ; and so on, through the whole 
list. 

The old, ungainly names are mostly gone. It is well they 
should pass out. I once had a pupil by the name of Nehemiah. 
He was a short, dumpy sort of a boy, and had a piping, shrill 
voice. When I called the roll in the morning, I did not blame 
the pupils for smiling when that little chit answered to that 
ponderous name. 

A young lady, in another school, rejoiced in the name of 
Mehitable Marjorie Matilda. She was small and squint-eyed, 
and round-shouldered — and no wonder. Zachary Taylor, in 
another school, had to fight many a Buena Vista, like his illus- 
trious predecessor. 

I've no doubt there are boys in prison who are made quarrel- 
some by the teasing they received from the other boys on account 
of their names. Parents are more careful nowadays about the 
matter. 

I made some very pleasant acquaintances in the town. The 
Snows, the Ramsdells, the Lyfords and the Hammonds were 
very kind, and made my stay in town pleasant. The cold Friday 
of 1861 found me walking a mile, facing the north, and wading 
through snowdrifts three feet deep, trying in vain to protect my 
unfortunate nose from the wind, forcing the air against it at the 
rate of sixty miles an hour, which had been cooled down to 30 
below zero. That nose, the next day, was beyond classification. 

I collected the pupils, that day, around the stove in the 
schoolroom and taught them till three, and sent them home. 
That night the Colonel and I read from Milton's "Paradise 
Lost," and almost envied Satan's new quarters. The young 
stock froze, that night, in several barns in town ; many poor 



ATKINSON 77 

people suffered severely, and two persons perished in the road, 
not far away. 

The Colonel and I slept in a small bed-room in the north- 
west corner of the house. We had family prayers and I remem- 
ber I got so near the stove that I burned a hole in my coat. Our 
boarding mistress was a lovely woman, blessed by a kindly smile 
and a sweet voice. 

Atkinson is still a "Corner." There has been but little 
change. The old families are nearly all gone, however. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MILO. 

Milo next engaged my services. There were three grades 
in the school. The High School was under my instruction. The 
school was a large one and pretty well advanced. Milo was, at 
that time, quite an enterprising village. There were some very 
prominent citizens and some very peculiar characters. 

There were some very pretty, very smart girls in school, 
who had a lot of fun with me the first week. I was never more 
perplexed than in deciding what to do with them. They were 
the daughters of some of the best families, and simply wanted 
to have some fun with the schoolmaster. They were too big to 
whip and too good-looking to keep after school. And they 
learned their lessons first-class. 

The "innocent surprise" that would show itself in their 
pretty eyes when I reproved them for any misbehavior would 
have made Maud Muller seem bold. "I am sure," said Sarah, "I 
never intend to be out of order," and so said they all. One day 
all four commenced to chew gum. I suggested that rumination 
was not in order. "We are sorry," said one, "we have always 
chewed gum in school and didn't know it was wrong. We are 
sorry." Ten minutes after each had a very long striped pencil 
stuck over the ear, protruding six inches before the face ; and 
thus on through the day. For every act. they were sorry and 
did not intend to be out of order, they said. 

It is somewhat marvelous what an immense power for mis- 
chief a pretty girl has when she is inclined that way. I suppose 
this fact is but the exhibition of a law of nature that whatever 



MILO 79 

is capable of producing great good is equally capable of pro- 
ducing great evil. Caloric, in the form of what we call fire, is, 
perhaps, our best natural friend, but remorseless and terrible 
when on mischief bent. The better anything is, the worse it 
becomes when turned to evil. It took an Archangel, according 
to Milton, to make a mischief-making Satan. 

The thunderbolt, that for many ages hurled death and 
destruction among so many people, ought to have taught the 
world long ago that there was an inestimable good wrapped up 
somewhere in those bolts of Jove. It seems strange that philoso- 
phers, reasoning from effect to cause, had not earlier sought and 
found the good. No one did for ages, — Franklin simply sought 
to escape the evil or turn it aside. The philosopher should have 
considered the proposition : "Here is a mighty force doing much 
harm in the world. God never made it for that purpose. It 
must have been created for good." When, in these later days, 
scientific men began to investigate with that idea in mind, the 
result became apparent at once. 

Why not account for the appearance of sin in the world on 
the same hypothesis ; that all sin is perverted good ; that God 
never created sin, or anything sinful, but that all things were 
good and made for good and that they became evil when improp- 
erly used. Corn is a blessing when made into bread and an evil 
when changed into whiskey. The conclusion we reach is that 
all things were created for good only, — including girls. 

In speaking of mischievous girls, the question arises : Who 
can do the most harm in the world — a wicked man or a bad. 
malicious, wicked woman? In a discussion of this nature there 
should be taken into account the whole influence exerted upon 
the world, young and old ; which one affects the future the most, 
which has the most influence to tear down the social fabric 
Christianity is endeavoring to erect ; which destroys public con- 
science the more, and exposes abstract goodness and virtue to 
greater dangers. Does a bad man do harm in the same way that 
a wicked woman does? Certainlv not. An abandoned man seems 



80 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

to possess a personality that a wicked woman does not. She 
seems to stand for the sex. He passes as an exception. 

She represents a class. Let a man from Siam come to town 
and show himself a villain ; the people will not judge that all 
men from Siam are equally depraved. But let the first immi- 
grant from Siam be an abandoned woman, then the conclusion 
is reached at once that all Siamese women are bad. It is unmis- 
takably true that heredity taints more surely follow the sins of 
the mother than those of the father. It is equally true that the 
persuasive powers of woman are far greater than man's, for 
good or evil. 

But there is one grand distinction between a thoroughly bad 
man and a depraved woman. She may lead her victims farther 
in some particular direction than a man could, but yet she never 
quite forgets her mission in all directions. She may murder 
her rival, but would weep over the sorrow of her aged mother, 
bemoaning her murdered daughter. 

Well, I studied those girls carefully for two days, and spent 
most of the nights meditating, and finally decided what to do. 
The decision was a happy one. It led to a very harmonious 
state of things. What was it? If I should ever write a sequel 
to these papers, I will reveal the whole affair, and give my com- 
ments on it. 

One of the girls afterwards married my college chum, and 
made a most exemplary wife. I had one boy who never 
smiled or said a pleasant word. When I asked him how he was 
getting along his answer invariably was "Well enough." I hope 
that man never married. Just think of a pleasant-faced woman 
sitting a whole evening through with a man like that ! Two 
of the boys became doctors. One bore the distinguished name 
of Hannibal Hamlin. It took him quite a long time to cross the 
Alps, but he succeeded at last and sunny Italy appeared to him 
in the classical town of Orono, where he now very successfully 
practices. 



MILO 8 1 

Another boy became a lawyer and settled in the West. Win- 
field Scott, true to his name, became a great conqueror of — 
female hearts, and Zachary Taylor fought adverse fortune like 
a hero. 

Four of my pupils afterwards entered the Union Army. 
Many of the girls married very well and are living in Milo and 
adjoining towns. The school was the best I had taught and I 
am sure it was so regarded by the pupils and parents, since, the 
next spring, four pupils went to Monson to attend Monson 
Academy, where I taught. 

Milo sent a larger percentage of her citizens to the war than 
any other town in the county except Monson. Most of those 
came home, and several of them attended school at Monson. 

There were two churches in Milo. In one a very rough, 
uneducated man hurled all the terrors of the Law at his atten- 
tive congregation. The house was always full. The other 
clergyman was an educated man who preached very well pre- 
pared and interesting sermons to a very small congregation. I 
asked one of the people how this happened. He said : ''Oh, he 
gives us brimstone, and we deserve it and like it." 

The people of Milo were very kind to the schoolmaster, — 
that was what we were then — and I have always enjoyed visiting 
the town. 

The Leonards and Macombers and Goulds were very nice to 
me, and so were the Kimballs and Ramsdells, and others. Dr. 
Kimball was a most excellent man. Three children attended 
school. They were all very nice and bright. Only one sur- 
vives. She is now the wife of Bert Ramsdell, a prosperous 
farmer. Bert was always a good boy and I liked him every 
day. Mr. Gould had a daughter, Delia, in school, whom I 
remember as near perfection. 

Mrs. Abbie Owen Stubbs taught the lower grade in the same 
building. She was a fine teacher and a nice young lady. I 
boarded at her father's, and she and I, that winter, settled many 
points in theology and ethics that other people have failed to do. 

6 



82 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

If Brother Stubbs listens as attentively to his wife as I did that 
winter, he will never go wrong. 

Will Owen, her brother, I shall never forget. His son was 
Senator from Piscataquis County last winter. The youngest 
Leonard boy was Representative. 

Milo is, at this time, a very prosperous town, and has 
brighter prospects for the future. 

I remember one very peculiar man in town. He knew a 
great many small facts in history, most of them unimportant. I 
have known several men like him ; men who have a naturally 
retentive memory, but have not intelligence enough to compre- 
hend any historical fact of importance. These men become the 
most interminable bores in existence. They will corner some 
really well-informed man and fire at him a cannon charge of his- 
torical questions of the most trivial nature and annoy him beyond 
endurance. 

This man of Milo had made the lives of my predecessors 
miserable. I had heard of him, and was prepared for him. 
One day he met me in the Post Office and approached me and 
said, "I suppose, Mr. Knowlton, you are conversant with the 
facts of history?" "No, sir," I replied, "I am totally ignorant 
of the history of any nation or people." With surprise written 
on every line of his moon-shaped face, he exclaimed, "Why. 
ain't you a college graduate?" "O, yes," I said, "but it is a 
lamentable fact that I don't know history." He gave me a look 
of supreme disgust, and left me. He afterwards criticized the 
school committee for hiring a man to teach school who didn't 
know history. 

One day each one of the boys in the army from Milo wrote 
him a letter. In those days when the mail came in and had been 
sorted, the Postmaster, with a bundle of letters in his hand, 
would call aloud the names of the fortunate receivers, and pass 
the letters to those who responded "Here." When those army 
letters arrived there was fun in that office. The Postmaster 
would call out "C. A. Abbee," "Wm. Owen," "C. A. Abbee," 



MILO 83 

"Wm. Gould," "C. A. Abbee," and so on till the end. When 
the historian went home, he had to borrow a small basket, in 
which to carry his letters. He came down town one day, and 
said that there was a new General commanding- the fleet in the 
Mississippi River that was destroying the rebel fleet, "General 
Rise." 

The paper had said, the day before, that "a general rise of 
the river had damaged the rebel fleet." He told me, one day, 
that he did not believe the story in the Bible about the "Sea- 
pulcre." "The idea of a person's being buried in a 'Sea-pulcre!' 
I don't know how big a 'Pulcre' is. but I don't believe it is big 
enough to bury a man in." 

How many men there are very much like him, who, with a 
little smattering of knowledge in one thing, presume to possess 
what they never could attain with life-long effort! 

I have a theory that every idiot could be educated in one 
particular direction. Had I the training of such a person, I 
would discover in what line there was the most promising out- 
look, and direct every effort in that one line. Scholars there are 
who can simply learn to spell ; others to write : and others in 
some other direction. 

I boarded with Wm. Owen, a very fine man, blessed with an 
excellent wife. My room was a small chamber, looking out 
upon the street. I had become addicted to the use of tobacco, 
but had reformed, and had concluded that, if I was to board at 
a deacon's. I must be very good. The first few days found my 
resolution unshaken, but on the fourth day my stove began to 
smoke, and this fact was seized upon and made use of. My 
reasoning was. if the deacon's stove smoked, why should not I ? 
So the stove and I had our social smoke occasionally, during the 
winter. How many men and women there are to-day justifying 
their conduct by arguments as trivial as that! Very few are 
willing to admit that their depravity is really a determined con- 
clusion to do just what they want to do the most. 



84 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Thousands of drones are pleading many reasons why they 
are not as other men, when the truth is, there was just one 
cause, — simply laziness. Many, in describing the prosperity of 
others, say : 

"O, he had a pull, had some one to help him start." That 
may be true, but I have noticed that the fortunate man always 
pulls himself. "They all began to make excuses." The fact is, 
no one is quite honest with himself. "Hamlet" should be 
engraved upon the tombstones of thousands of men ; men who 
knew their duty ; wanted to do that duty, but, somehow, never 
did it ; and, oftentimes no one can assign the real reason why 
life is a failure in their case. 

With some lack of physical force seems to paralyze energy, 
ambitions, aspiration. It is difficult for a person to start out 
on some enterprise requiring great mental effort, and be obliged 
to execute great undertakings while the feeble body is all the 
time demanding rest and nursing. Some men can do this, but 
life generally soon wears out and the end comes as a relief. 
Another lacks faith in his ability to perform the duty fate assigns 
him. The mountain seems too steep to climb ; but there is an 
earnest desire to be upon the height. That desire never dies : 
He is not content to remain in the valley, nor has he courage 
to try the ascent. So there he stands all his life long, desiring, 
fearing, finally dying with life's work all undone. Such men 
are to be pitied rather than censured. The difficulty is generally 
a constitutional one, and is rarely overcome. Those men are 
not utter failures, — many a dreamer has thought out ways and 
means that men of less brains but more executive ability have 
presented to the world, and wrought out marvelous results. 

The father of Hiram Maxim was a dreamer, but he con- 
ceived the idea of the famous Maxim gun long before the boy had 
thought of such an invention. Neglected and unknown graves, 
all over the land, hide from human gaze, many forms in which 
once dwelt the brightest sparks of divine intelligence, while the 
marble mausoleum flaunts to the world that the remains of the 



MILO 85 

Great repose in the tomb. The lamented Great was but the 
executor of the real genius. Some one has said that every 
genius was inspired, that such a person was the recipient of a 
divine influence, only given in rare instances. Granted, then 
must follow the conclusion that such devine power, operating 
upon the human, so overmasters the human as to partially para- 
lyze the common worldly faculties, and renders the man a simple 
spiritual force, acting almost solely in mental lines. Such a 
man can invent, can speculate, can conceive of almost divine 
schemes, and possibilities ; but it must be left to the common, 
worluiy mortal to put in force that which his inspired brother 
has received from the great source of all knowledge. 



CHAPTER X. 

MONSON. 

I went directly from Milo to Monson. The school at that 
place had been a failure. A gentleman of that town had once 
been County Commissioner, and so had Mr. Macomber, of Milo ; 
Mr. Chapin wrote to Mr. Macomber, inquiring about a teacher. 
Mr. Macomber called me into his office and informed me that 
a teacher was wanted at Monson. I accepted the position, and 
went. That Hegira produced as much influence upon my life 
as it ever did to any good Mahometan. 

The seemingly trivial circumstance of the acquaintance of 
those two men, living thirty miles apart, produced a crisis time 
in my life and predestinated much of my career. I presume the 
same is true in the life of most men and women. Little things, 
almost unnoticed events, seeming accidents, have played con- 
trolling parts, not only in the lives of individuals, but events that 
shaped the destinies of nations. A slight shower rendered 
Napoleon's artillery ineffectual at Waterloo and probably 
decided the battle ; a dinner party, prolonged till midnight, 
prevented the War Secretary of England from sending orders 
to Clinton to join Burgoyne at Saratoga, and sounded the knell 
that was consummated at Yorktown. The poet says : "A pebble, 
in the current dropped, has turned the course of many a iiver." 
The history of the world illustrates the same fact. 

These events are crisis times. Though a person live his 
allotted three score and ten, a retrospect of the past shows that 
he has experienced only two or three real crises periods, that 
those events were really his life. All the years, labors, and trials 



MONSON 87 

simply led up to the crisis time that predestined many years to 
come. 

When a young man seriously decides what course in life he 
will pursue ; when he stands, for the nrst time, with a glass of 
wine in his hand ; when a profession is decided upon ; when he 
is aware that he is doing his first deliberate wrong; all these 
moments are living agents ever acting upon the trivial events of 
his life which fill up the interim till the next crisis. 

Happy is the man who takes advantage of the tide that leads 
on to fortune — hopelessly does he battle against the ebb that can 
only hurry him on to the death-dealing shallows. That man 
must wait till the tide turns ; all he can do is to keep off the rocks 
and look out for hidden reefs. He must keep his oars in hand, 
ready for any current helping him out of danger. 

Monson was, at that time, a small village, nestled away 
among mountains, lakes and valleys. Half of the township was 
donated by the Legislature of Massachusetts to Monson Acad- 
emy and half was also given to Hebron Academy. Monson, 
Mass. Academy sold its land to settlers from that part of 
the State, and Hebron did likewise. Each exercised great 
care in the selection of settlers and the result was that no town 
could boast a more reliable band of pioneers. Nearly all the 
pioneers were church members, and soon two churches were 
formed ; a Baptist and a Congregationalist. A school was 
organized in the very beginning of the settlement. This was 
taught first in a private house. An old settler informed me that 
in his part of the town the first school-house had a peculiar 
origin. The bears troubled the flocks of the settlers so per- 
sistently that they gathered together one day and built a strong 
log house, some ten feet square. In one side they cut a door 
large enough for a bear to pass. In the door they set a "dead- 
fall" to which was attached an apparatus so arranged that when 
the bear went in and began to eat the bait laid out for him, the 
trap would let fall the door, and bruin would be imprisoned. 
When bears became scarce and children plenty, the neighbors 



88 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

met again, put a roof on the log pen, laid a floor, put in a 
window and lo! a school-house appeared. The first word the 
scholars learned to spell was b-e-a-r. 

The town was decidedly puritanic for many years. There is 
quite a large lake in the center of the town, and also good hunt- 
ing near the village ; but, during the first years of my teaching 
there, I never saw a boat on the lake, or a fisherman, with his 
rod, or sportsman with his gun, on Sunday. Everybody went 
to church, and very many were members of the churches. There 
was also a very active literarv sentiment among the people, — 
among the early settlers were some well educated ladies and a 
few men. These gave a tone to society that was transmitted 
and increased as more advantages presented themselves. 

There was, in those days, a great interest in education. This 
had been shown years before in a practical way. In 1847 the 
people resolved that there should be an Academy in Monson. 
They called a meeting and appointed committees, and, having 
obtained aid from the State, by means of private money and 
contributed labor, erected a building in 1848. This structure 
was burned twelve years later, but another was built in 1861, 
which is still used as a school building. 

The slate quarries had not then been opened. Farming, 
lumbering, and trading absorbed the attention of the people. 
There was no railroad to Moosehead Lake, hence all the travel to 
that place went through Monson. The only riotous times in 
those days were when the river-drivers went through the town, 
and when an old Militia Major ran amuck. 

Card playing was tabooed and dancing was thought a 
heinous sin, and Masonry was not regarded as conducive to 
righteousness. There was not a large amount of wealth, but 
quite an even distribution. 

None were very rich, and few very poor. On the whole, 
there was a high moral tone among the people, who were con- 
tented with their lot and wanted nothing better. If there was 



MONSON 89 

just a trifle of the spirit of the man in the synagogue cropping 
out occasionally a little, it could readily be pardoned. 

The crisis before mentioned came to me in the most agree- 
able manner. Among the pupils there was a young lady who, 
afterwards, became my wife, and I have ever had cause to bless 
the circumstance that induced me to go to Monson. That lady 
was an only child ; this circumstance kept me at Monson many 
years. I passed, in all, some twenty-five years in that town and 
saw many changes there. In 1871 slate was discovered and a 
quarry opened, the railroad to Moosehead Lake was built, and 
the lumbering interest began to flag. A new class of people 
came in ; new conditions began to appear ; new societies arose, 
and a new standard of propriety seemed to be raised up. 

The history of the development of the slate quarries has 
never been written and never will be fully till the Recording 
Angel renders up his final account. Companies rose and fell, 
fortunes were made and larger ones lost, in alternate rapid suc- 
cession. Men came to town for a month, and went away, to 
give place to more new comers ; new quarries were opened and 
old ones abandoned ; new companies were formed upon the debris 
of shattered predecessors, till, at last, the business settled down 
upon a solid basis and seems now to be profitable to owners and 
workmen. 

There were many pathetic events connected with the history 
of those days. I went to bed one night, feeling sure that my 
name would one day sound very much like \ anderbilt's, but 
waked in the morning to discover that it would sound better 
beside that of Lazarus. Wealthy men became poor, and poor 
men wealthy. Quarries were found everywhere. Every ledge 
of rock promised its owner a fortune, and everv house-lot invited 
a mansion. 

One circumstance in the upheaval resulted very fortunately 
for the recipient. An aged clergyman, who had been pastor for 
some twenty years in town, had just resigned. His worldly 
possessions consisted of a small house and a few acres of land. 



90 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



In the cellar of that house real slate was discovered. A specu- 
lator bought the premises and thus the good old man was made 
comfortable in his declining years. He moved away, but the 
influence for grace he had exerted still lingers, with sacred 
memory, in the character of many whose lives he influenced. 

An old pasture that was nearly worthless, belonging to my 
wife's folks, sold for twenty-five hundred dollars. 

That "Wall Street" financiering in Monson produced some 
Napoleons of finance. Some of them are still active agents and 
promoters in the booming business, and are wealthy ; while 
others met their Waterloo in the first skirmish and had never 
a St. Helena for refuge. At that time I realized that lack of 
knowledge is a serious deficiency. Many a day had I sat upon 
the protruding rock in that old pasture with never a thought 
there was value in it. I believe there is an old proverb about 
Heaven lying at our feet, if we can only see it. 

Great changes have taken place in the slate business. The 
motive force that lifted the rock out of the first quarry was a 
sad-eyed, long-eared donkey ; to-day several sixty-horse power 
engines are always at work. The water was removed by one 
of Uncle James' wooden pumps, — now the steam pump hisses 
day and night. Roofing slate only was at first manufactured ; 
now almost every conceivable household and mechanical con- 
venience is subserved by finely wrought slate implements ; and 
when one dies, he can sleep his last sleep encased in a highly 
polished sarcophagus of slate. 

It seems to be a granted fact that Monson slate is the best in 
the world. It withstands the attacks of acids, and alkalies, 
better than any other. The business of quarrying and manu- 
facturing slate has become the all-absorbing interest of the 
people of the town. 

I cannot see just how slate should be connected with the gun 
and fishing rod, but somehow, on some alluring Sunday morn- 
ings, gun and rod have, in later years, occasionally appeared. 



MO N SON 91 

Perhaps I may be pardoned if, right here, I discuss the men- 
tal, moral and physical aspects of fishing and hunting. The man 
that really enjoys fishing is a fortunate being. He ought to 
congratulate himself. Of course, I do not mean those men who 
fish just to get something to eat. There is no more good coming 
to such men from a day's fishing on lake or brook than there 
would be to him engaged in any other kind of labor. But to 
the man who loves nature, solitude, the breezy lake, the sparkling 
brook, who can see a thousand beauties beaming upon him from 
beech, maple and pine ; whose tired nerves are soothed to rest 
by every wave, beating music upon rock and shore, the rod is 
a magical wand that opens up more treasures than Sinbad ever 
dreamed of. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FISHING. 

It may be that an attenuated drop of the blood of the old 
Druids circulates in my veins, prompting a love for trees. There 
is something sacred about an ancient tree that seems, almost, to 
call for worship. Bryant says : "The groves were God's first 
temples." Wordsworth declares : 

"One impulse from the vernal wood 
Will teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the Sages can." 

Nature is a wonderful teacher ; but she requires an attentive 
pupil. The student must be in harmony with nature. Her 
voice can only be heard and her language understood when 
teacher and scholar speak the same language. To listen to her 
voices there must be the attentive ear and absorbed attention. 

To the hunter, with gun on shoulder, with slaughter in mind 
as he, with Indian-like tread, steals through the forest, nature 
offers no Paradise, sings no songs, lulls to no repose. I am 
making no attacks upon hunters or hunting, but simply wish 
to note the ethical effect of the one and the other recreation. 

Take a trip with me, wearied preacher, discouraged teacher, 
sleepless man of law, as in retrospection I seek rest, comfort and 
inspiration from never unwilling nature. The road winds gently 
away from the thoroughfare and, as the sleepy horse plods 
dreamily along, through the rifts in the mist veil, more beautiful 
than princess ever wore, hanging in air, occasional flashes of 



FISHING 



93 



sunlight come, making weird forms and shapes dance upon the 
lazy waves of the lake, just awakened from profound repose; 
anon the veil would roll itself up into folds made bright and 
gorgeous, blushing red as the sun god kisses the mythical Lady 
of the Lake ; at length island and farther shore begin to appear, 
and loon and wild duck, gracefully sporting in the water, assure 
us that the marvelous panorama upon which we have been 
gazing, is a real lake of physical existence. 

Its beauty invites us, its repose allures us, its dreamv calm- 
ness soothes us, but more charming music the soul requires 
to-day, more sublime solitude must breathe into the soul its mys- 
terious repose. Then on we go, with umbrageous accompani- 
ment on either side, over little streams, some laughing, some 
complaining in plaintive murmurs, till the deeper forest is 
reached ; where the hoary trees, in sober garments dressed, begin 
to infuse into the soul a gladsome feeling of repose. They are 
so much wiser than the short-lived human passing by. They 
have seen so much. Beneath their branches the lordly moose 
mayhap has taken refuge ; the sad-eyed deer ruminated careless 
of hunter or wolf : the foot of the red man has, it may be, trod- 
den the leaves at their base, — defiant of storm and lightning flash 
for ages, have they stood in majestic solitude! 

A slight curve in the road brings the stern, bald head of 
Boarstone in view. There are no sharp corners in the road, 
switching off one's dreamy contemplation by violent abruptness 
to other scenes, but just gentle windings, so that every new 
view is interblended with the last, as colors of the rainbow blend. 
Thus the "gentle musing" is uninterrupted, and soon takes pos- 
session of the whole soul. 

At length the forest path is reached, winding in gentle 
curves through tangled shrubbery and over gently rising knolls, 
moss-covered, reaching the tiny lake at a point where the view 
is most picturesque. 

A gem of a lake lies embossed among circling hills. On the 
north ridge rises above ridge, till a lofty summit is attained, 



94 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



crowned with evergreen trees ; on the east there is forest, cir- 
cling down to the water's edge ; on the west precipitous rocks 
rise abruptly out of the water and tower aloft into the air, fringed 
with mosses, lichens, and trailing arbutus. Every step in the 
panorama is beautiful, artistic, symmetrical. The alternate 
ridges, rising with perfect demarcation one above another, with 
alternate growth of deciduous and evergreen trees, the circling 
shores, the lofty headlands, the dense forest; all form a natural 
poem, which the poet, the lover of nature, the aesthetic, can read, 
feel and assimilate. 

With rod and line we seat ourselves in the boat and gently 
paddle out from shore. We cast the hook into the water and 
await results. The fish are not plentiful. We lie back in the 
stern of the boat and let nature talk to us. Forgotten are cares, 
enemies, if we have them, everything not in keeping with the 
almost supernatural repose. We still have the rod in hand, 
which seems to be the connecting link between purely spiritual 
enjoyment and earthly pleasure. Should a venturesome trout 
disturb the bait and rouse us from our meditation, we, for a 
moment, come back to an earthly existence ; gently lay it in the 
boat and admire its graceful outline, its ever beautiful livery, and 
rejoice that it is in keeping with the artistic beauty all around 
it. Then we fall back again to our meditative state and the 
mental faculties begin to show their supremacy. Deep ques- 
tions in philosophy are solved, moral perplexities fade away, 
theological solutions are now easy. If some congenial friend 
occupies the boat with us, an occasional word is spoken, usually 
in subdued tones. 

But under no conditions are friends so near together, so 
true, so dearly appreciated. 

And so the day passes away and the evening shadows come, 
all too quickly, and the nervous, pessimistic man of the morning 
lays his head upon the pillow that night, feeling that he has 
received a recipe from the Great Physician, and this world, after 
all, is a glorious one. 



FISHING 



95 



Recreation should develop the physical, stimulate the mental, 
and improve the moral. It should never brutalize or render less 
refined the sensibilities. There is nothing in a day's fishing 
calculated to do this. There is no scene that would offend the 
sensibilities of the most delicate lady, — and great moral lessons 
may be learned. We discover that if we catch men, lead them 
to higher and better life, we must not lash the waters of the 
social world in frenzied fervor; nor shout our convictions as 
though the world was deaf, but with argument suited to the 
occasion, cast and wait, ever willing to accept what conditions 
have offered. 

I spent a day last year on a beautiful little lake where every 
condition was conducive to repose, to ethical thought, to poetic 
conception. My companion was a gentleman from New York, 
a lawyer of extensive practice and successful in every under- 
taking. But I feel very sure, though the bar would have lost 
much, that the college would have gained more, had he become 
a teacher instead of lawyer. We fished, talked, admired, medi- 
tated, and spent an ideal day. We discussed many weighty 
subjects, decided, to our own satisfaction, at what age students 
should enter college, what constitutes an education, compared 
a liberal education with the practical superficiality of the day, 
and many others. 

I afterwards tried to reproduce that conversation. It was 
impossible. The setting was lacking. The genial, inspiring 
influence of my companion was absent, and that absence was 
fatal. No substitute could fill that place. He was just 
the man, with his overmastering genius, that called out 
the best in me. The lake and the forest had driven 
away all common thought and cares, and left the mind free to 
receive impressions of a higher and better nature. Those came 
from the keen analysis of thought emanating from the brain of 
my companionable fellow fisherman. His words inspired me, 
the unspoken sentiments of his soul, by the undefined channel of 
spiritual influence, inspired my soul, and the unrestrained aban- 



96 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

donment of my whole being to every influence around put my 
mind into a condition capable of the highest intellectual and 
spiritual efforts. Only occasionally can every condition be so 
completely met. 

The unseen, self-acting influence of mind upon mind is a 
common theme for discussion in these days, and much may be 
said upon the subject, but still the theory is little understood. 
The phenomenon is still a theory. There are daily exhibitions 
of what we recognize as simply action of mind upon mind, with- 
out any physical movement whatever. These instances are not 
theories, but facts ; but what is needed is to discover under just 
what conditions this influence will always operate. 

That there is an indescribable influence which emanates from 
one mind to another cannot be denied. But that influence will 
sometimes be an active force, and sometimes not. When it does 
manifest itself, it is the most potent that can be brought to bear 
upon the human soul. Men have been led by this indescribable 
influence to do that which no argument or persuasion, expressed 
m words, could cause them to do. And under no other con- 
dition can this spiritual influence be felt as in the temples not 
made with hands and casting shadows upon the placid waters. 



CHAPTER XII. 



MONSON ACADEMY. 



I found the school at Monson in complete confusion. 
There were no very had scholars, but the school had been an 
utter failure on the part of the teacher to control the scholars. 
There were about twenty-five large boys and girls out of a 
total of sixty-five. Some of these are prominent people in 
Monson at the present time. Among them was D. P. Bailey 
of Everett, Massachusetts. Mr. Bailey was a very excellent 
scholar, and showed at that early age the promise that later 
reached fulfillment in a very prominent career as a lawyer, 
financier and statesman. I remember that in one term the 
whole twelve books of Virgil were read. There were six in the 
class and each read two books apiece and no two the same. 

The schoolroom was rather dark so I sat a red-headed boy 
in the dark corner to illuminate that vicinity. That same boy 
was once out fishing through the ice. Vice-President Hamlin 
was there, having some live bait. My pupil had none but 
wanted some so he approached the Vice-President holding out 
at arm's length a big old-fashioned cent and said, "Meester 
Hamblen, sell me a chub?" He got the chub. 

At school after a few days everything went on all right. 
The trustees hired me to teach the fall term and increased the 
salary. I came back in September and taught. The school 
was large and advanced. Greek, Latin and French were taught 
as well as Geometry, Trigonometry and Surveying. There were 
no graduations in those days, each one went to school as long as 
he pleased and left when he felt disposed. Five pupils came from 



98 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Milo where I had taught, and two or three from Abbott. I 
enjoyed that school very much although I had to work very hard. 
There was a high moral tone in the school. Two of the boys 
became deacons, one a lawyer, one a doctor, one a clergyman, 
one a financier and one a librarian. While teaching here I "made 
up" my college work and found myself rather tired at the end 
of the year. My next term was at Monson. In this school 
several war veterans became prominent factors. The old poets 
of Greece and Rome invariably associated Mars and Venus in 
every prominent act in the drama of social life. They must 
have been right for ever since they have been inseparable. 
"The bravest are the tenderest, the daring are the loving." 
Those war scarred veterans divided their attention between 
grammar and the doorsteps leading to the many attractive par- 
lors of that town noted for pretty girls. In two weeks Lord 
could conjugate amo like an ancient Roman. He always gave 
the active voice, said he had no use for the passive voice. The 
progressive form was just suited to his nature. 

Cruel war had deprived Ricker of one arm, but he made the 
best use of the remaining limb in embracing every opportunity 
for an education and some other things. His geographical 
knowledge was defective as he discovered one rainy lyceum night 
when he offered to gallant a young lady home who lived some- 
where near Moosehead lake. Carver's hearing had been in- 
jured in a big battle to that extent that he could never hear the 
clock strike one A. M. Douglas was more conservative. He 
never had but two girls at one time. The boys studied well 
and made good progress in their studies considering how many 
nights they stood guard pacing the deserted streets and guard- 
ing the commissary and outflanking the other fellows. In- 
stinctively they formed themselves in foraging parties, and 
turnip field and corn patches and cucumber yards suffered. A 
local poet reminisces about those days as follows : 
A careful review of the last forty years, 
In spite of all croaking and carping and jeers, 

.Oh J 



MONSON ACADEMY 99 

Shows many bright spots, many labors well done, 
Some storm, some sunshine, some tears and some 

fun. 
But 'tis hard to believe that the gray-headed men 
Were boys and girls at the Academy then. 
I cannot imagine that staid Deacon John 
Ever rang a church bell or tooted a horn 
On the 4th of July, put on the gloves or handled 

a bat, 
Or talked with the girls at recess and all that, 
Ever smiled upon Emma or Clara or Nell, 
Ever wrote little notes and received them as well, 
Ever flirted or courted, Deacon John, O no ! 
His children take after the mother you know. 
And Carol whose wisdom the wisest enjoy 
Can you even imagine he was ever a boy? 
There's a story, made up of fiction and truth 
That Chapin, the banker, was at one time a youth 
That the Parson, so learned in Biblical lore 
Stood many a night on the steps of the door. 
Did Nelson attend with the girls and the boys, 
That silent, still lad never making a noise? 
Can it be that these walls did ever resound 
To the voice of Bailey, so deep and profound? 
No prophet was needed the future to scan, 
A boy with the heart and brain of a man. 
And the records proclaim that a long, stately form 
Whose head rose far above clouds and the storm 
Sat in the back seat with his hair standing straight 
Where now there appears a polished white pate. 
Twas Carver the soldier. Carver the flirt. 
Companion of Lord and Loring and Bert. 
Did Reetus sing then? Ask the rocks and the hills, 
That echoed his quavers, repeated his trills. 
Old Orpheus so sang that the rocks jumped around 
And the trees promenaded all over the ground — 
But Reetus could stop the wild comet's career 
And Aurora oft stopped her horses to hear. 
And once when his tones outrivaled the lark 
She forgot all about the light and the dark 
And left the old Sun down under the water 
Till the school bell struck at eight and a quarter. 

LirfC. 



IOO THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

And the world never knew the terrible fix 
Old Sol was then in at half past six. 

singers, beware, take warning I pray 
Don't frighten old Phaethon's horses away. 
Don't deafen the lark when he's up in the sky 
He flies you know a mile or two high. 

A myth has come down from the oo's or so, 
If false or if true I'm sure I don't know, 
Of a boy possessing such marvelous brain 
That the skull couldn't stand the terrible strain 
When it worked together, so each part took a turn 
And what would come out you could never discern. 
When his eyes were fixed on his reader or grammar 
A whirl of the brain now 'twas Jennie or Anna. 
The preaching brain next and then speculation 
And he tried every one without hesitation. 
No girl and no boy will ever forget 
Burb Loring the joker with hair black as jet, 
And lots more boys whom fama obscura 
Has hidden from sight, et femina pwa 

And some tell of a girl from the shores of Moosehead 
Whose weight was 300 or more it is said 
Lord walked with her home one moonshiny night, 
When the weather was calm and the stars twinkled bright 
Till he came to the door he never once knew 
That Chapin had walked on the other side too. 
Who pulled up the beans? Was it Chapin or Lord? 
Or Leonard, or Francis, or mischievous "Thod ?" 
Who raided the hen-roost and foraged the corn, 
And courted the girls till the break of the dawn? 

1 shall not tell. Those gray-headed chaps 
Quite have forgotton those frolics, perhaps 
Are now warning a daughter or son, 
Never to do the things they had done. 

Loring- was there too. Shall I attempt to describe him? No, 
the task is too great. Future historians must do this or he will 
"die unsung." 

There was a boy who attempted to study Greek. He never 
got beyond that paragraph in the Anabasis which declared that 
"To Darius and Parissatis were born two sons." But he was 



MONSON ACADEMY ioi 

a genius and became a famous financier and promoter in busi- 
ness circles in more states tban one. He is now engaged in con- 
verting Martha's Vineyard into a crockery sbop. 

Not one of the trustees of the Academy of those days is 
alive at the present time. Aretus Chapin was the President and 
did all he could to make the school profitable. Mr. Chapin was 
one of the old settlers, and always held some town office. He 
was later a member of the House at Augusta. His well known 
temperance principles produced a marked influence upon public 
opinion in Monson. He is ably represented at the present time 
by his son, Hon. A. W. Chapin. Mr. Chapin does a large busi- 
ness in town and is active in every movement for public 
improvement or in educational lines. "Bert" was a soldier, 
and one of the boys before mentioned in connection with the 
school, but he was always one of the inside guard. 

Dr. Sumner Patten was also a trustee. He was a fine 
speaker and somewhat of a politician. He was State Senator 
later. He sent to school one of the sweetest girls I ever had the 
pleasure of teaching. She is now Mrs. Walter Pullen of Wash- 
ington. I also have the kindliest remembrance of Walter. He 
was a fine scholar and a gentleman and has made a very success- 
ful business man. Charles Pullen, an older brother, I remember 
with pleasure. He married a favorite pupil of mine, Miss 
Celeste Knight, and holds a responsible position in the business 
world in Brooklyn. 

Among the bright-eyed young ladies was a Miss Celeste 
Robinson of Greenville. She was never idle a moment, or still 
many, during the day, and had a musical laugh that would dis- 
arm a cynic, and a smile that brushed away every frown that her 
mischief caused. She is now Mrs. Sanders of Greenville, occu- 
pies a very prominent position in the social world and is uni- 
versally admired. 

From the forest bound shores of Moosehead Lake came a 
young lady. Miss Masterman, apt to learn, with retentive mem- 
ory, bringing with her all the modesty and shyness of her sylvan 



102 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

home. She was a lovable girl, tall and graceful, and made 
rapid progress in her studies. She now lives in the West. 

Miss Arvilla Serepta Burdict labored under the most 
euphonic name of any one. Miss Ellen Carr Flanders' name did 
not quite suit me, so I persuaded her after five years of assiduous 
attention to change it to Ellen Flanders Knowlton. Whether 
or not that change has been beneficial to her the recording angel 
only knows, but it was the most fortunate undertaking that ever 
engrossed my attention. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
EXETER and DEXTER. 

In 1863 I taught some weeks at Exeter. A young man 
commenced the school, but some difficulty arose which termi- 
nated his stay in town. The school, on the whole, was pleas- 
ant, but there were disagreeable features in it. Many of the 
pupils had caught a theatrical fever — which ran very high. 
There was a young man among the pupils by the name of J. M. 
Hill who was the leader in the "craze." Every morning, noon, 
and night theatricals were discussed, and much of the time 
appropriate for study was wasted. The condition was some- 
thing like the modern status of interest in education. 

Not long ago I stepped into a hotel in a town noted for its 
schools. In a few moments several students came in, and for a 
half-hour those boys conversed together. Football, basketball, 
and baseball were fully discussed ; the last prize fight received 
due consideration, but not a word about a single mental exercise, 
the graduation class, books, rank, college expectations ; all these 
things would have interested me, but in silence I endured the 
most senseless gabble of those boys, feeling quite sure that 
somebody was wrong : either I or the boys, or the teachers of 
the boys. 

I propose to make no raid upon athletics ; it would be fool- 
ish to do so. The fever is on ; let it have its run ; there is no 
such thing as "breaking up a fever." Only quacks ever claim 
such power. When the poison has worked itself out of the sys- 
tem the time will be ripe for teaching healthful athletics, mental 
discipline, moral principles. 



104 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



Well, I let the theatrical fever at Exeter have its run — when 
I thought the fever ought to "turn" I just "turned it." All 
communication in school hours ceased. No more rehearsals at 
recess or noon, all books or plays were seized as contraband ; 
study was required, perfect lessons demanded ; and, in fine, a 
complete change of program was insisted upon. There was 
rebellion at first, but this soon subsided and some good work 
was done by the pupils. 

Many of the pupils belonged to families well known in the 
State. There was a young lady in school who did not behave 
very well and one day I was discussing the matter with her 

father when he said : "Take a birch and give her a h 1 of a 

licking." Not fully understanding Exeter's interpretation of 
the amount of punishment permitted by the expression, I con- 
cluded to adopt another method. 

F. M. Hill became, in after years, the famous theatrical 
manager of New York and Boston. There was a very pretty 
boy in the school, about nine years old. His name was Arthur 
Barker. He was the son of David Barker, Maine's most cele- 
brated poet. Arthur was a sweet-looking boy, with rather a 
girlish face, a bright scholar but rather mischievous. When he 
was born, David Barker sent to the New York Evening Post 
the following exquisite stanzas : 

"One night, as old St. Peter slept, 
He left the gate of Heaven ajar, 
When forth a little angel crept, 
And came down on a falling star." 

"One Summer, as the blessed beams 

Of morn approached, my blushing bride 
Awakened from some pleasing dreams, 
And found that angel by her side." 

"God grant but this, I ask no more, 

That when he leaves this world of sin, 
He'll wing his way to that blest shore, 
And find the gate of Heaven again." 



EXETER AND DEXTER 105 

I have spoken of Barker as Maine's greatest poet. In real 
genius I thing he would rank above any poet who wrote in 
Maine. N. P. Willis, Longfellow, and others, we can hardly 
claim. Barker was a strange man. Much of his poetry was 
of a low order, but when a real inspiraton seized him, the truly 
artistic showed itself. 

In "The Covered Bridge" there is real poetic merit; also in 
"The Lion and the Skunk," "The Beveled Grindstone" and 
others. I feel sure that a more judicious editor would have 
added to the volume some poems discarded, and would have 
discarded some that were published. Only the best of any 
man's writings should ever be published. 

There was a very pretty little girl in school, about seven or 
eight years old. Every hair was firmly laid in just the right 
spot, and every act and word was always just right. I was 
very fond of that little girl. In after years she became the 
"First Lady of the State," and no Governor's wife ever graced 
the position with sweeter dignity than did Mable Hill Plaistead. 

One girl wore number five boots, I remember, and one boy 
was six feet and three inches tall. George S. Hill was a mer- 
chant at the Corner, doing an extensive business. I became 
very well acquainted with him and enjoyed many pleasant chats 
in that store : a few years after, Mr. Hill became an Episcopal 
clergyman and was engaged to preach at Presque Isle, and 
superintend the services of the St. John's School. I was to be 
the Principal of the school. Mr. Hill was thrown from a mow- 
ing machine and killed. No other man could be found for the 
place, so I lost my position at Presque Isle and went to Caribou, 
which was a fortunate move as my salary was largely increased. 

I taught one term of school in Dexter, in 1865, a summer 
term and boarded with my cousin, Mrs. H. C. Parsons. At the 
same time I studied law in the office of the Hon. Josiah Crosby. 
Mr. Crosby was at this time in the zenith of his career. Wry 
few men understood the technicalities of the law as well as he. 
He was the most painstaking man I ever knew. Although 



106 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

remarkably well posted in law, he never prepared papers with- 
out consulting the Revised Statutes, and never gave advice 
without doing the same. He had fine literary taste and read 
many good books. I enjoyed his society very much and heard 
of his death with regret. Two of his daughters attended school. 
They were bright, intelligent young ladies. One is now the 
wife of a wealthy railroad president in Minneapolis. The other 
lives in Washington. One lawyer came from that school, 
Edgar Russ of Dexter. The schoolhouse stood on Zion's Hill, 
so called on account of the pronounced piety of some of the 
neighbors. The schoolroom was in the second story. One day 
a fifteen year old girl fainted and I carried her down stairs to 
the wagon that had come to take her home. She weighed one 
hundred and fifty pounds. I was not able to teach the next day. 
One day a young man in reading Latin translated these words, 
Jacet ingens litore truncus caput avulsum humeris/ — "They 
put his head in a big trunk on the shore." The same young 
man translating that passage in Virgil that describes how the 
Greeks came out of the wooden horse, read, — "They came out 
through his ears." He was probably thinking of some men he 
had seen. I remember a Miss Mary Thompson in that school 
with pleasure, who was a fine Latin scholar. I enjoyed the 
school and think they liked me. I made many pleasant 
acquaintances in Dexter who showed me great kindness. Mr. 
Parsons and I played backgammon every night until twelve 
o'clock, then we would agree at what hour we would have 
breakfast and that devoted wife of his would call us at the 
stated hour. Would every wife have done that? 

Dexter is a picturesque town. A small stream runs 
through the middle of the village, propelling the machinery of 
several factories. The town is built upon the hills arising on 
either side. The roads are "Tommetized" on the upper side. 
This process consists in placing in the inclined bank alternate 
rows of grass sods and small rocks. The grass grows up and 
holds the rocks in place, so that a bank thus "tommetized" is 



EXETER AND DEXTER 107 

never affected by rain or frost. Thomas Bicknell first built the 
wall in Dexter, and immortalized his name by green banks and 
good sidewalks. "Tommie" was not a great man, but he did a 
good work and his monument will grow greener and fresher as 
time rolls on. The world is full of histories of men like Thomas 
Bicknell. They were humble actors in the great drama of pub- 
lic life, but left to the world a legacy rich in practical value. 
The patent office shows that but a very small proportion of the 
inventions patented is ever available. By the way, why do 
politicians always send patent office reports to constituents of 
no especial influence? The book is not very entertaining to a 
reader of literary or poetic nature. The professional inventor 
rarely succeeds. The marvelous specimens of machinery now 
operating in this country are the combined results of the thought 
of many minds, each adding something to the efficiency of a 
machine then in use. This teaches the fraternity of man, and 
ought to teach the moralist, who would make the world better, 
that he must not destroy all that has gone before but take what- 
ever is good, add to it, make new appliances, devise new 
methods and await its results. This suggestion applies especially 
to teachers commencing a school in a new position. The first 
impression a teacher has, is the idea that his predecessors were 
deficient in some lines. The revelations of the first few days 
convince him that the other teacher did not thoroughly do his 
work. I used to think so until I began to succeed myself, then 
I began to understand that vacation makes sad havoc with the 
memory of boys and girls. Entirely new methods introduced 
the first week are disastrous, though every new method be in 
itself better. When a method of doing has been drilled into 
the every day thought of a young boy no new one will find lodg- 
ment until the old one has ceased to be an intuitive act of the 
mind. The better way is proved to be something like this : 
take the old method in form and add to it on one side, so to 
speak, and drop off something from the other side. This pro- 
cess repeated daily will in a little while present an entirely new 
wav of conducting: that exercise. 



108 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

In matters of order a little more strenuous method may be 
necessary. The first day should show the school that there must 
be a predominating spirit in that schoolroom, and that factor is 
the teacher. This should be done quietly but firmly. These 
ideas are further treated and discussed in a lecture recorded in 
another place in this book. 

As before remarked, the streets of Dexter are nearly all 
up-hill one way and down-hill the other. This daily exercise 
gives the people great strength of muscle in the leg. All the 
boys are good football players. I noticed that the trousers of 
most of the men bagged at the knees, caused by the constant 
right-angle action of the knee in daily climbing. Josh Billings 
said Dexter was named from the famous trotting horse Dexter, 
and that it was three thousand miles west of London. It is an 
enterprising town full of active business men. Political opin- 
ions are always freely expressed, as are religious ideas. I 
remember one politician who declared with a string of oaths 
that would have astonished a river-driver, that he would not 
vote for a man that did not believe in religion ! They were not 
an excitable people in those days. I remember an old man hung 
himself before breakfast. The rope was cut and the man car- 
ried into the house and the doctor sent for. He came, examined 
the subject a moment or two and said, "I guess he isn't dead ; 
after breakfast I will see what I can do for him." After his 
matutinal meal, the phlegmatic doctor "brought him to." 

Dr. Fitzgerald lived in Dexter at that time. His stable 
was a marvel. The stalls for his horses were trimmed with 
ebony. The doctor, I remember, effected a remarkable cure one 
day when a quarrelsome fellow called him a liar. As the said 
fellow lay on his back gazing up at the sun, he must have 
formed a new resolution, for he was never known to want to 
fight afterward. 

I was well acquainted with Mr. Barron, whose tragic death 
caused so much discussion later. Dexter is at the present time 
a very prosperous village. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FOXCROFT ACADEMY. TEACHER. 

In 1864, I became Assistant Teacher of Foxcroft Academy. 
S. T. Pulleri was the Principal, and, as there was sickness in 
his family during most of the year, I acted as Principal a part 
of the time. I became Principal the next year, and enjoyed the 
school very much. 

There were about one hundred pupils, most of them well 
advanced in their studies. There were some I especially remem- 
ber for some peculiar characteristics. I can hear, today, the 
stentorian tones of A. W. Gilman, as he frightened the timid 
country lasses, while expounding the mysteries of Algebra, or 
parsing Milton's "Paradise Lost." I called upon him one day 
to read that clause wdiich commences as follows: "He called so 
loud that all the hollow deep of hell resounded." I never knew 
how loud that was before. 

I remember with pleasure Eugene Wade, a lovable young 
man with great ability, and that sweet sister, Augusta, whose 
portrait might have been painted for the face of a Madonna. 
Near by her sat Eliza Mayo, an excellent girl, and as kind and 
conscientious as a young lady could be. I remember her with 
much pleasure. I roomed just across the way from Mr. Mavo's 
when a boy at the Academy. Mrs. Mayo was very kind to me 
then, and I have always rejoiced at the prosperity that has fol- 
lowed the family. The Mayo family is, perhaps, the wealthiest 
and most prominent one in the county. 

I very distinctly remember the sweet face of Sally Crocker, 
and she was as sweet as she looked. There was something very 



I io THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

attractive about that little Miss. She is now a famous painter. 
I remember that the handsome, stately Miss Susie Brown used 
to recite extraordinary lessons in Virgil ; and that there was a 
stately dignity connected with the movements of Henry B. 
Flint, which has been a safe-guard against nervous prostration 
ever since. 

I had the pleasure of teaching E. P. Sampson Latin and 
Greek for a year or two. No student was more faithful in his 
work. Mr. Sampson graduated from; Bates and taught in Fox- 
croft Academy very acceptably. He has been teacher of Thorn- 
ton Academy at Saco, Maine for a long period of time. 
Mr. Sampson has become eminent in his profession. Few 
teachers have been as successful and none surpass him in zeal, 
devotion and tact. His Alma Mater would honor itself by 
bestowing upon him a well-merited LL. D. 

Dr. Putnam was a studious boy. He is now in the West. 
One boy I remember who had a rather swelly way of doing 
things. Years after I met him and remarked that he had 
changed somewhat. He replied : "Good Heavens ! I ought to 
change. I have been in seven states." A nice, quiet, studious 
little girl sat over in one corner of the room, who always looked 
very much relieved when the lesson was over. She was a 
fine singer, and Mrs. Henry Hudson still sings finely, and is a 
lady much beloved. There were three young ladies from one 
family by the name of Merrill. They were very nice and atten- 
tive. Lizzie still lives in the old homestead. I should do vio- 
lence to my own soul not to mention David Dinsmore. That 
smile of his cheered me in many a gloomy hour. 

Dr. C. C. Hall was a very diligent student and made his 
studies go as he has everything since. He not only has occu- 
pied a high position in his profession, but has held the office of 
County Treasurer and was Representative at Augusta last 
winter. 

A very bright young lady, Miss Gilman, I remember always 
had her lessons nicely learned. 



FOXCROFT ACADEMY. TEACHERS 1 1 1 

I can see the bright eyes of Miss Wyman today. How they 
used to sparkle when she laughed ! And pretty Rowena Wood- 
bury sat near the post, and Miss Macomber and Miss Robinson 
just across the aisle. Those two Misses were bright and inter- 
esting. I liked them exceedingly well, but used to wish, some- 
times, that Latin was a more serious study, causing less smiles. 

I recollect a very quiet, nice little Miss who sat up very 
straight in her seat, and was always studying. When she did 
any work on the board, every figure was just right and in place, 
as was every hair on the head of Annie Whittier. 

Miss Clara Getchell I well recollect as a very lively young 
lady of good ability. She is now the wife of L. P. Evans, editor 
of the well known "Piscataquis Observer." 

A. M. Robinson was President of the board of trustees 
when I taught at Foxcroft Academy. I became very well 
acquainted with him, and knew him in his last days. He was 
by nature a grand man. He possessed great analytical ability. 
He could dissect a proposition with such nicety that every part 
appeared in prominent positions easy to inspect. When he had 
thoroughly inspected every part and searched for the weak 
places, he attacked these with vigor and persistency. He always 
massed his arguments upon a few points and continued to 
enforce them by illustrations, figures of speech, logic — and 
repetitions. I write of him as he appeared to me, a boy, listen- 
ing to a very succesful lawyer. There was an air of sincerity 
about him when speaking, that gave me the impression that he 
must be right, and the jury apparently thought the same. He 
gained many cases. He was never what is called "eloquent," 
but was an excellent debator, persuasive pleader, and held his 
audience till the end. 

His choice of words was noticeable. Not a word was used 
that did not drive home the argument. His thought seemed to 
be, — one link broken, the whole chain was useless. I particu- 
larly noticed that he used more purely Anglo-Saxon words than 
any other man at the bar. 



II2 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Mr. Robinson's friendship once secured, he was a friend for 
life. He was a man of few prejudices, and judged every man 
and principle on its merits. Honest and kindly in all his rela- 
tions in life, he was honored among men, and loved by his 
friends and associates. 



CHAPTER XV. 

BRIM FIELD. 

In 1866 I went West and came back in August. Learning 
that a teacher was needed at Brimfield, Mass., I went to that 
town and interviewed the trustees, and secured the position ; 
and, a fortnight later, commenced the school. It was a very 
enjoyable set of pupils. The atmosphere of the schoolroom 
and of the town was conducive to easy teaching. 

Brimfield is a typical Massachusetts town. There is an 
indefinable something about Massachusetts people that is dis- 
tinctive and characteristic. An inherited taste is always supe- 
rior to an acquired one. The people there, through a long line 
of descent, come naturally by a refinement of manners and 
thought, and language, which people newer in these matters can- 
not assume with the same ease, however much they may desire 
to thus attain. The hospitality of the people is remarkable, 
when once the doors are opened. It is not the best way, in 
Massachusetts, to slap a stranger on the back whom we wish to 
know, but when the proper advances are made and received, 
there can be no people more cordial and friendly and hospitable. 

I loved that people and remember them with greatest pleas- 
ure. I sat on the piazza of the hotel, the first night there and 
enjoyed the view as the evening twilight settled down upon 
the landscape. In front of the hotel was a broad plain, covered 
with very green grass. Upon the right, at a little distance, 
could be seen, through the trees, the spire of the Congrega- 
tionalist Church; on the left was the schoolhouse, a modest, 
rather pretty building : several pretty houses could be seen on 
8 



114 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



three or four streets. The fire-flies were flitting over the 
meadow, lighting their lamps, one by one, as the stars came out 
timidly to see if the sun had gone down. I remember now how 
fine it all appeared ; how peaceful. The Committee had met me 
very cordially ; the village pleased me ; the salary offered was 
satisfactory ; the evening was magnificent ; I felt that Heaven 
was very kind, and I was happy. 

A man came along, said "Good evening," and sat down 
beside me and inquired if I were the new teacher. Being 
informed that his supposition was true, he commenced an hour's 
talk by saying: "Well, I can tell you this ; that you will be sorry 
you ever came." He then mentioned the Committee, one by 
one, and gave every one a character far from lovable, and 
totally different from the truth. That libeler then went right 
through the town and mentioned some sin or crime each had 
been guilty of. When that man left me that night, I was in a 
frantic state of dejection. Had there been a train out that night, 
I should have gone. Upon the next day I met many of the peo- 
ple, and found them ladies and gentlemen of a high and culti- 
vated order. I never taught where I loved the people as at 
Brimfield. 

Every town has a man like that one, but I never before met 
him the first day. If that man is in Heaven at this time, I 
would like to hear his description of the inhabitants of that 
place. 

There were about seventy-five pupils, mostly from Brim- 
field. The adjoining towns sent about a dozen to the school. 
There were some very intellectual pupils and some very lovable 
ones. Taken together the intellectual status of the scholars 
was very high, as was the moral standing. It was a very easy 
school to govern. 

Among the pupils was a young man of marked individual- 
ity. He was a fine declaimer and enjoyed practicing the art of 
public declamation. His laugh was refreshing. He was never 
dull in conversation, and had a very happy way of making the 



BRIMFIELD 



115 



teacher think he knew all about the lesson. He graduated at 
Amherst College and became a lawyer in Boston. He is a very 
prosperous politician ; and holds the office of Street Commis- 
sioner of the city of Boston. All the old pupils will recognize 
in the Hon. Salem D. Charles the sequel of the good-natured 
Salem D. Charles of the Hitchcock Free School of Brimfield. 

There was also a bright-eyed little miss who always had her 
lessons well learned, but who had an irresistible impulse toward 
restlessness. She could never be still a moment. There was 
not a malicious thought in her soul, but the spirit of mischief 
led her into all kinds of adventures that caused us to become 
very well acquainted. The thankful manner in which she would 
receive paternal advice from nxe was very touching, especially 
when, by accident, I caught the twinkle in her down-cast eye. 
Just as I expected, she has made a magnificent woman and holds 
a very responsible position in an old and well-known institution 
in Aie Bay State — Dean of Holyoke College. 

I As I write, the whole school comes up in array before me, 
and I see them all as vividly as in sixty-six, seated in that pleas- 
ant school. I see the dignified Rebecca, reciting "The Cry of 
the Human," the loving, impetuous Etta, one of the flowers that 
grows between" the insatiable reaper gathered ; the sweet, sad 
face of Lizzie, whom the gods loved ; the queenly Miss Cham- 
berlain : laughing Belle Brown ; Sarah Leombard, so quiet ; and 
Mary, her chum; Lizzie Monroe, never out of order; and Jen- 
nie, so positive ; and Sarah, so shy and self-poised ; — all these 
and many more do I remember as though the long years had 
never intervened between the last day at Brimfield and the pres- 
ent time. 

I boarded at the Hotel kept by Mr. Monroe. No more 
genial landlord ever managed a hotel. Mrs. Monroe became a 
real mother to me. She had an especial pudding for each day in 
this week. All those puddings had been christened by a theo- 
logical name. I ate through the course, and decided that the 
Baptist pudding was the best, and asked her if she was not a 



Il6 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Baptist. She replied she was ; which accounted for the best 
one being thus named. I asked her to explain the meaning of 
the names. She did so, much to my amusement. The Uni- 
tarian pudding was "pudding" today, and became "cake" served 
up cold to-morrow. The Methodist pudding was what my 
mother called ''Minute Pudding" — good while hot. The Ortho- 
dox pudding stood up very stiff and never lost form. Remem- 
ber these are not my definitions, but the good lady's. 

At the Hotel boarded a young man from Sturbridge whom 
I enjoyed very much. There was a lot of fun in him ; but it 
was innocent fun. He was an industrious student. That 
young man is now a very successful physician at Leiscester. I 
had the pleasure of meeting him last year at Brimfield, and 
thoroughly enjoyed his company. We called upon the Doc- 
tor's old chum, Geo. Webster, and talked over old times. 

Another boy at the Hotel was young Converse, a quiet, nice, 
boy. What lessons Miss Kenny used to accomplish ! How 
pretty Lizzie Lombard was ; and what fine pupils those were 
that came up from Sturbridge ! How well I remember free and 
easy Miss Achart, Miss Ward with flaxen hair, and her prim 
sister ; Miss Blashfield, always in earnest ! I have not a list of 
the names of the pupils, and do not recall the names of all ; but 
the pupils themselves, I recollect, every one. 

One, I remember very well, wrote me, some years ago, 
about the old pupils. She lived two or three miles out of town. 
I can see just how she looked and how she recited ; but her name 
I cannot recall. 

I still recollect how finely Miss Parker used to recite, and 
what prettv black eyes she had. I wonder what has become of 
sweet little Miss Hubbard, and the Warren girls? The Brown 
boys I always liked. Fred Gates sat down by the door and was 
a good boy. William Potter, if I remember rightly, never 
intended to sweat. And Stone who divided twenty-two by two 
and obtained, as he told me, "two ones," and the McDougal boy, 



BRIMFIELD 



117 



who wrote "Penitentiary" ninety-nine times on the board before 
he got it right ; shall I ever forget them ? 

Miss Orcntt still stands before me. Those nice Chamber- 
lain girls and the blacksmith's daughter, all these are a part of 
my soul. 

I visited Brimfield last year, and met a few of the old 
friends in the Hall ; alas ! how few ! Only one of the trustees 
saw I there. The anxious eye sought, in vain, the kindly faces 
that used to welcome me with a smile ; but I could not, did not, 
regard them as dead. I felt that they were there in the Hall, 
only the dull, cold eye of the earthly mortal could not see them. 
I know I felt the influence of my old friends upon my soul, that 
they too had a word of welcome for me. 

In the evening, I stood alone upon the door-step and sur- 
veyed the stars ; the seven stars forming that group were shin- 
ing with unusual luster. I remembered that there were once 
eight stars shining in that group, and now only seven are seen ; 
but the eight must be there still, exerting all the influence it ever 
did, only the finite eye of man cannot see it; so I felt that my 
old friend, Judge Brown, was giving me the same old, hearty 
handshake, and inquiring how the school was getting along. 
The never- forgotten smile of encouragement of Mr. Hubbard, 
driving away every home-sick feeling; the hearty laugh of Mr. 
Tarbell, and his cordial recognition still reached me, as if fall- 
ing from the Empyrim above. They were all with me, though 
the eye saw them not. Such men can never die! They 
live in other lives, live in the influence they exerted ; live 
in the institutions they founded ; live in the unseen 
power they exert in the uplifting of humanity, the refin- 
ing of society and the "hastening of the Confederation of 
the World." "Shall we know each other there?" Yes, I am 
sure, and we will find each other on some anniversary occasion 
in the same old dining hall where, as congenial friends, we met 
and held pleasant converse, while living on earth. So, I appre- 
hend, will family reunions take place. When father and mother, 



Il8 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

brother and sister, never forgetting the old, familiar fire-place, 
will intuitively gather there and recognize each other, and hold 
sweet converse together. The thought is a pleasant one, and 
who shall gainsay the hope? Surely death can never destroy 
the deep emotions of the soul. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MARRIAGE HOME. 

In 1867, I resigned at Brimfield and went to Monson and 
was married, the next day, to Ellen Carr Flanders, by the Rev. 
D. P. Bailey. I was, at that time, twenty-eight years old, and 
had never seen a person married. I can recall now some of the 
emotions moving my soul at that time. I wondered if the young 
lady would be as dutiful as a wife as she had been as a pupil. 
One thing I fully realized ; that I was about to enter into a rela- 
tion which death only could terminate. 

That relation has existed nearly forty years, and I have 
never regretted the words spoken that night. 

My wife belonged to a good family. The Flanders family 
was a prominent one in New Hampshire ; and is well-known 
there at the present time. The Carr family of Bradford, N. H., 
has, for many years, been well-known in financial and social life. 

In my younger days I had resolved to live a single life. I 
had always had a great admiration for the girls in a general 
way, but had always thought of them as beings of entirely dif- 
ferent order from myself. They seemed to be ethereal beings 
just lent to earth for a time, lifted far above the grosser things 
or thoughts of an earthly nature. They were to me objects of 
admiration. — a sort of abstract essence of the divine enlivening a 
form of clay most beautifully carved. That a being so sweet to 
look upon, so pure and so modest, so kind and affectionate, 
sympathetic and just, so witty and graceful, so self-sacrificing 
and tireless in all things good should ever be monopolized by 



120 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

one gross, rough, selfish man seemed to be an abuse of the most 
glorious gift of Heaven to man. 

But later in life some of those illusions vanished. I dis- 
covered that a young lady could not only be beautiful, but useful. 
That her mission while on earth was not only to beautify, but 
to make all things better. She was to become not an idol to 
worship, but a being to love, cherish and even to listen to. I 
discovered by observation that she was a necessity to man's 
highest moral elevation, and that her influence was the best 
when she held the responsible position of wife. All these things 
led me to change my mind and marry. 

I am convinced that man ought to marry. There are many 
reasons to confirm this statement. The Creator evidently 
intended that man should marry since there is implanted within 
the soul of man an intense desire to enter into that condition, 
and certainly observation teaches us that there seems to be some- 
thing lacking in the makeup of a man that never marries. Such 
people never have a home. How many writers have attempted 
to define that one word home. No one has succeeded fully. 
Home implies a wife and a house, and many things in it. There 
must be something more there than just what is needed. There 
must be something there like the Lares of the ancient Roman ; 
something more precious than any other thing; something call- 
ing forth an emotion akin to worship. These household gods 
may be very commonplace things in themselves, but as precious 
as diamonds to the possessor, — an old clock that father used to 
wind up every night, a chair in which mother sat as she mended 
our tattered mittens, a little shoe that baby once wore, a book 
that the blushing girl gave before she became the wife, — many 
things associated with the struggles of the first years of mar- 
ried life ; these things make home. There can be no home with- 
out them, but those are not all. Above all these there must be a 
wife in every home. By the word "wife" I do not mean just a 
woman who is legally bound to a man by the contract of mar- 
riage. I mean a wife who loves her husband, loves her chil- 



MARRIAGE— HOME 12 1 

dren, her home ; who has the happy faculty of inspiring every 
one around her with a love for everything good and noble ; who 
patiently waits for the dawning in the darkest midnight hour 
and becomes a companion to her husband, a blessing to the 
community, a God-ordained constituent of a home. But the 
home is not yet complete. There must be a husband in that 
home. Not simply a citizen of the United States qualified to 
vote, but a man who loves his home and is willing to sacrifice 
all selfish things for its complete perfection. — a man who 
remembers that his wife paid him the highest compliment ever 
received when she showed her confidence in him by consenting 
to entrust more to him than to all the rest of the world, — a man 
who finds his highest ideals at home, who thanks God every 
day that there are dear ones for whom he can labor, to whom he 
can look in sunshine and storm for comfort and consolation. 
A log house may be a home ; a palace, a barren shelter. Money 
can make a home glorious, but cannot make a palace a home 
where the essentials are wanting. Of course, the ideal home 
implies comfort, culture, music and those surroundings that 
wealth expended by an ideal man can furnish. But these are 
few. All cannot be rich, but there may be millions of homes 
that satisfy every longing. Many there are to whom the reality 
of the "Cotter's Saturday Night" is realized. From homes go 
forth children that make statesmen, good citizens. The more 
real homes there are the better will society be. the more pros- 
perous our home-blessed land will be. 

Unmarried men do not possess homes. Of course I am 
speaking in general terms. — there are exceptions to all rules. 
Unmarried women do often have real homes. They have their 
household gods, their pretty fancies and always someone to love. 
Every child is their friend, every suffering one has their sympa- 
thy, attention and care. Some of the noblest women I have 
ever known are of this class. Nor do they feel that they are 
martyrs wasting their sweetness on the desert air. They are 
loved, respected and never forgotten. Only a month ago an old 



122 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

lady, who had been a domestic for many years in the house of 
a wealthy citizen of Piscataquis, died in another town. Her 
body was carried to the rich man's house, where services were 
held in keeping with the position held by that honorable mem- 
ber of society. The church choir sang the same sweet songs 
that soothe the souls of the rich and refined, the parish clergy- 
man was not a whit less eloquent and pathetic than if the wife 
of some distinguished citizen had crossed the river. 

How many a dissipated young man has been brought to 
himself and led back to virtue when some day a vision of the 
old home flashes across his mind ! Away from the scenes of 
childhood though one be for many years, that home is never 
forgotten. Unfortunate is that boy whose father has no fixed 
abode. All my young days were spent in one house, on one 
farm. Every tree around the house was dear to me, every hill 
and rock sacred. The barbary bush in the garden, the grape- 
vine that bore no fruit, the butternut tree that was older than I, 
the Balm of Gilead that Uncle Joe had planted, the beaver dam 
where those wonderful animals had once lived, the orchard 
whose fruit was dearer to me than the apples of Hesperides, the 
mill-pond where I used to boat and fish, the brook along which 
for many days I had wandered, — all those and many more were, 
and are dear to me. There was a large pine stump standing on 
a high knoll in my childhood days, around which I had played 
for many hours. Returning to the old homestead a few years 
ago, I felt that something was wanting. The landscape was 
spoiled. That stump had been removed. The Balm of Gilead 
that had buffeted the wind for many years had at last fallen, 
and gone were the records of the early prowess of the boys of 
my childhood. No boy could be called a hero who had not 
climbed to a certain limb and carved his name there. Bheu! 
fugaces labantur anni! The tree is gone. The record is 
destroyed, and the boys are gray-haired and preparing to go. 
The grapevine still trails in negligent profusion over the trellis 
and the barbary bush looks old and feeble, but there are a 



MARRIAGE— HOME 



123 



thousand precious objects still dear to me at that old home. Not 
far from the house on a gently rising mound is "God's Acre," 
where my father and mother lie. When "Life's fitful fever" 
closes, God grant I may close my eyes in the room where I first 
opened them, and that the feeble engine through which my soul 
acted, may forever rest on that sunny hill-side, where I spent 
many hours in childhood days. I have never ceased to find a 
melancholy pleasure in wandering through the aisles of a ceme- 
tery. A feeling comes over one there unlike any other. The 
emotions are not wholly sad, they are subdued, refined, chastened. 
A kindlier feeling for humanity, a charity for human frailty, a 
forgetfulness of past resentments steals over one in that silent 
assembly that makes the man better who in meditative thought 
is listlessly contemplating the spot where he shall "lie down to 
pleasant dreams." Irving says, "Who contemplates the grave, 
even of an enemy, without a compunctious throb?" All are 
friends where the cypress weeps. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MONSON. SUPERVISOR. 

My teaching at Monson the second time was an unexpected 
event. I had engaged to teach at Cherryfield, but was per- 
suaded to remain at Monson. The school had changed some- 
what, but was enjoyable. I continued in the school until I was 
appointed supervisor of schools for the county ; then I taught 
part of the time, and attended to the other duties the rest of the 
time. I enjoyed the work, on the whole, very much. The first 
experience was not very flattering. I was comparatively young, 
and thought I held a very important position. The first school 
visited was at Sebec village. I went to the door, rapped, and 
soon a fine looking teacher came to the door. I informed her 
what my name was, expecting to see great emotion show itself 
upon her face ; but not a muscle moved. She simply stood there 
and looked at me in a sort of perplexed way. At length, I 
added the information that I was County Supervisor, and came 
to visit the school. She then asked me to come in. I went in 
and sat down. Finally she came to me with that same look on 
her face that I had often seen on the faces of pupils who did not 
know their lessons, and asked me what office I held. I then 
fully realized that she did not know that such an office existed. 

That morning when I started from home, I thought I was 
a very important personage and held a very exalted position. 
As I sat in that chair, I felt that I would sell the whole business 
for a picayune. Finally she asked me if I would like to hear 
some of the classes recite. I said I would, when she had called 
them to order. At that very moment one boy was crawling 



MONSON. SUPERVISOR 



125 



out of the window ; another was dragging a smaller boy out of 
his seat by the hair ; and two or three girls were playing a game 
of "cat's cradle" with some strings. She looked a little sur- 
prised at my stupidity and said : "They are in order now." I 
think that was the noisiest school I ever visited. The school- 
house was a good one. there were forty scholars, and the teacher 
was rather handsome, and finely dressed ; but the cause of educa- 
tion languished. 

The next school visited was taught by a Miss Robinson of 
Parkman. The very atmosphere of that schoolroom was 
refreshing. The teacher loved her work, and her pupils, and 
they loved the teacher, and enjoyed their work. I spent a day 
there, not to criticize but to admire and enjoy. It was an ideal 
school, and few teachers could be like Miss Robinson. 

In the next school I found a teacher trying to hear thirty- 
two classes recite every day. There were twenty-five pupils in 
all. Of course her time was nearly wasted. In fact, the want 
of classification was the greatest defect in the schools. 

In one school the class in Geography was reciting, and I 
asked a boy if he had ever seen the earth. He said he never 
had. That same boy, at that very moment, had a large portion 
of the earth on his hands and face. 

The methods of punishment were sometimes unique. One 
teacher had some clothes pins on the lips of three of the pupils. 
They looked rather funny, sitting there with those patent 
clothes pins sticking out under the nose. These pupils had 
been caught whispering. In another school there was a boy 
with his mouth propped open by two cedar sticks. I told the 
teacher that there was danger of strabismus of the masseter 
muscle. In another school the teacher put cayenne pepper on 
the tongue to punish that troublesome member for lying. 

In that little red schoolhouse, one day, a teacher told one 
of those restless, mischievous little fellows to fill the stove with 
fine wood. The boy did so. Then the teacher put in some 
paper, got some matches, and called the boy to the stove ; she 



126 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

took off the cover and seated the boy on the stove, and lighted 
the match, and told him she was going to roast him. If ever 
those walls resounded with ear-piercing howls, they did at that 
time ! Off from that stove the boy leaped, and, minus hat, coat 
and shoes, sprinted for home at a break-neck speed ; screaming 
all the way, "I don't want to be roasted !" 

Perhaps that boy's mother never studied rhetoric ; but one 
thing I know ; that she fulfilled Webster's definition of eloquence 
perfectly. He said eloquence consisted in action, action, 
action." 

The jovial superintendent of one town told me that his 
method of grading his schools was very simple. There were 
two panels gone out of the schoolhouse door, making a small 
and a larger hole. Those that could crawl through the small 
hole went into the Primary School ; those that went through the 
larger panel went into the Grammar School ; and the rest went 
to the High School. 

That County Supervisor law was a good one, and ought to 
have been continued. I admit that Mr. Johnson was unfortu- 
nate in some of his appointments, but many of the number were 
practical teachers. N. A. Luce was a man fully qualified to fill 
the position. W. J. Corthell was another member eminently 
qualified. Mr. Corthell has few superiors as an educator. An 
excellent public speaker, an acute logician, expert in rhetoric, 
with a mind unsurpassed in analysis, W. J. Corthell might 
have been one of Maine's best known public men, had his ambi- 
tion run in that direction. But he loved teaching and has been 
determined to give all that is in him to that vocation, and has 
impressed himself upon many minds and built a monument, 
imperishable as the truths he taught. 

Only three or four of the sixteen survive at the present 
time. 

Stanley Plummer of Dexter was another Supervisor well 
qualified to act. He was a fine scholar and an excellent public 
speaker. Mr. Plummer later became a very successful poli- 



MONSON. SUPERVISOR 



127 



tician and held a position at Washington. Mr. Plummer has 
been twice in the Legislature, and is at present practicing law in 
Dexter. 

Mr. Eaton of Somerset was well qualified for his work. 

Mr. Stetson was the personification of a Greek statue, 
speaking grave truths by a mechanical apparatus through mar- 
ble lips. He was a man of great reasoning powers, but totally 
lacking in personal attraction. He died several years ago. 

Dr. True was a man of great erudition and rather an inter- 
esting speaker for a limited time, but when the Doctor once got to 
going, his speech became "linked sweetness long drawn out." 
Dr. True did a good work in the educational field, and his name 
should be honored. 

Mr. Robertson of Augusta was an enthusiastic worker and 
well skilled in methods. He died lately at Augusta. 

The founder of the Little Blue School at Farmington made 
an excellent supervisor. Mr. Abbott was a very nervous man, 
and sometimes became a little rattled, but always recovered his 
composure. 

N. A. Luce was fully qualified, both by acquirements and 
ability to occupy the position of supervisor. He had a superior 
literary ability and was somewhat of a poet. He occupied the 
position of State Superintendent for several years, with the full 
consent of the teachers of the State. I must quote a line from 
a poem of his written while in college. "Conservatism holds the 
reins, and progress plies the brush." Luce and myself once 
co-labored on a poem of four lines and produced a stanza that 
attracted the attention of one man at least. The Supervisor 
had a meeting at Augusta during the session of the Legislature. 
There was a member who called himself "the cat under the 
meal." He advocated the repeal of the law creating the office of 
supervisor. One day I wrote a couple of lines and, passed it to 
Luce. He wrote two lines more and passed it around among the 
members. A reporter found it and sent it to the Portland Press. 
The next morning I strayed into the House. When I entered 



128 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Mr. C. was speaking with his voice raised to the dome, and wildly 
flourishing a paper around his head. He howled, "I will cane, 
I will beat him to the earth." He referred to the author of 
those innocent four lines. Mr. C's. partner, by the way, had 
been fined for selling liquor without a license. Those lines 
were these : 

"Have you heard of the cat that's under the meal, 
That honest old cat that never would steal 
Except from the government all on the sly 
By selling, unlicensed, a little Old Rye?" 

But he did not cane us. Mr. Luce is still engaged in school 
and literary pursuits. 

Mr. Sleeper of Aroostook was a very active man and could 
pop up and say a good thing and down again with great 
rapidity. 

During the three years in which I served as County Super- 
visor, many very peculiar conditions came to my notice. In one 
town I held a public examination of teachers, and found one 
young lady totally unfit to teach anywhere. The Town Super- 
intendent had engaged her to teach in one of the schools. I 
charged him not to allow that girl to attempt that school. He 
promised that she should be dismissed. When I came around 
to visit the schools, I found that young lady in that same school. 
I took dinner with a prominent citizen and at the dinner table 
I complained about the matter. Mr. A. said, "Don't say a word. 
B. is owing me for a cow, that girl is owing me for a cow. I 
told the Superintendent I would sue him if he did not give the 
girl a school. Don't say a word, it is all right." Two cows 
spoiled that school. Another school committee would hire no 
teacher who did not live in town. In some towns that rule 
works all right, but in others it is disastrous. The best teachers 
should be secured regardless of local habitation. I repeat that 
the county supervisor law was a good one. It would be well to 
revive it if the appointments could be disconnected from politi- 



MONSON. SUPERVISOR 



129 



cal machinery. The system now existing is good as far as the 
law is used but only a few towns act under the law. There are 
only two Superintendents in Piscataquis county, none in Aroos- 
took and one or two in Penobscot. That the schools have 
improved under the supervision of Mr. Harvey B. Williams, the 
people of Dover and Foxcroft certify by repeatedly electing 
the same efficient officer. 

That rigid school inspection is imperative, is apparent to 
every one qualified to judge in such matters. Even if the 
teacher is qualified and faithful, he can receive help from a visit 
of a man whose business is to inspect and suggest. But many 
candidates for positions are not qualified and should never be 
allowed to teach. It is positively a crime to put a teacher into 
a schoolroom to teach children, who is unfit. I repeat, a crime, 
because the school superintendent or committee make oath that 
they will faithfully perform their duty. It is their duty to dis- 
criminate. If they are not capable it is a sin for them to occupy 
the position. But it is urged that some towns are not the pos- 
sessors of any one fully qualified. That may be a fact. Then 
that town should unite with some other town or towns, and 
unitedly employ some one who is qualified. "But," said one 
committeeman to me, "Mr. C. taught a good school if he was 
unqualfied, he was enthusiastic, kept good order and the scholars 
liked him." Well, suppose I hire a man to drive me around the 
country on business. He is enthusiastic and can handle the 
reins like Budd Doble, but he does not know the roads and lands 
me at last at the end of some cross road in a swamp. His very 
enthusiasm leads him further out of the way when he takes the 
wrong road, and the faster the horse goes the further from my 
destination I am carried. The less enthusiasm an incompetent 
teacher has the better for the pupil. An error projected into 
his mind with enthusiastic force penetrates deeply and Eradi- 
cates with difficulty, if ever. 

But there are teachers who do pass a good examination 
who do not know how to teach. Inspection shows this, and 
when this is once discovered, the teacher should be instructed 
9 



130 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



and if he fails to improve, let him be dismissed. A man may 
know every rule of navigation but he could not sail a ship if he 
cannot tell the helm from the anchor. A skillfully trained sur- 
veyor with wooden legs would make a poor land surveyor. A 
lack of ability to govern a school can only be discovered by 
inspection. If a teacher shows a natural deficiency in this direc- 
tion, he should certainly cease to teach. No school can be 
profitable where there is disorder. I admit that there are 
schools where too much attention is given to obtain what is 
called a "still" school, where fussiness prevails. This is not 
well. There must be a certain amount of noise in every work- 
ing school just as there must be noise in a machine shop, but no 
superintendent in such a shop will allow any unnecessary noise. 
Every adjustment must be so perfect that no friction can occur. 
The manager of a pile-driver will oil every gudgeon so no 
unnecessary noise will be heard. 

But how shall good teachers be secured? And how good 
inspectors? There can be but one answer. The inspector 
should be trained to the business, and devote his whole time to 
that one occupation. Nepotism is the cause of more poor schools 
than all other causes. No business man can be a good super- 
intendent. Insensibly his business interests warp his judg- 
ment. I am inclined to think that every school inspector should 
have authority to dismiss a teacher as well as to employ them. 
The school committee can delegate the power for hiring teachers, 
but cannot delegate the power to dismiss. I see no reason why 
an incompetent teacher should be allowed to remain in the 
schoolroom any more than an incompetent clerk should remain 
in the store, but of course, it must be shown clearly that the 
teacher is at fault. Sometimes through the incompetency of 

the Committee, it is impossible for the teacher to do good work. 
Text books are not furnished, proper wood is not in evidence, 
no proper classification has been attempted. Sometimes stupid 
inspectors become actual impediments barring every attempt at 
better methods and progress. In fact, few teachers are properly 
supplied with the externals needful for a good instruction. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

GOING TO HOULTON. 

My going to Houlton was a sudden movement. Dr. Ricker 
remarked to me. one day while out on the lake fishing, at Mon- 
son, that perhaps I might receive a call to Houlton some day. 
One day in September, 1874, I received a telegram to go to 
Houlton. I started the next morning, went to Old Town, and, 
on the morrow, took the train to McAdam's Junction, where I 
commenced the most extraordinary railroad journey I ever 
experienced. 

The Canada & New Brunswick Railroad, for the consid- 
eration of five dollars, agreed to convey me to Houlton. The 
time required was not stated. The ticket was "good for this 
day only ;" but the day was something like those mentioned 
in the first chapter of Genesis. The train from St. Andrews 
had not arrived, so I spent an hour at McAdam, viewing the 
scenery and trying to feel the full import of breathing the air 
which circulated over a land which was under the dominion of 
of a Queen. 

I failed to realize any quickening of the pulse, and conclud- 
ed to remain at ordinary size. But the landscape ! There were 
rocks everywhere, and then some stones, then some ledges 
on which were boulders, surrounded by granite reefs. The 
earth was nowhere visible ; nothing but rock and sky could be 
seen, except five or six stumps that were brought down with the 
drift when the glacier moved down from the North. 

A hasty examination of the geological conditions convinced 
me that a huge glacier came down from the North, sweeping 



132 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



before it every rock it met in its irresistible course, till a moun- 
tain of rock, boulders and granite ledge was piled up. This 
mass became so heavy at McAdam Junction that the glacier 
struck solid rock and stopped. A change of climate melted the 
ice and scattered the rock round about and thus they lie today. 

Before I had finished the survey, a Canadian Customs Offi- 
cer examined my modest baggage with a pompous dignity that 
was amusing. I pitied that officer. His hat must have cost 
five dollars, the brass buttons on his coat were very brilliant 
and his badge was fear inspiring. That professional strut of his 
must have cost many hours' hard practice. The official tone 
he assumed when he, with stony stare over the top of my hat, 
said ; "Open your baggage," would have made Wellington jump 
with alacrity. I hastened, with great speed to comply with 
his demand. I had simply a well-worn, old-fashioned valise 
as the sum total of my belongings. As I opened the delapidated 
jaws of that antiquated receptacle, and exhibited to that officer 
of the Queen a few handkerchiefs and articles of clothing, I 
pitied him. 

His makeup fitted him to inspect a carload of diamonds, 
a cargo of silk or a puncheon of brandy. It seemed so undig- 
nified for him to simply rumple up a few articles of wearing 
apparel, without using a single key from that ponderous bunch 
hanging from his embroidered belt. 

A black-haired girl, in one corner of the station, sold me 
a sandwich which was the first nourishment I ever received from 
a foreign potentate. I have been satisfied with Uncle Sam's 
cooks ever since. 

At length the train arrived, not with the roar and dash of 
modern trains, but with all the dignity and deliberation of a 
conservative politician. I seated myself in a car and waited. 
The train was a mixed one and went up one day and came back 
the next, — sometimes. 

After the conductor, a sad-looking, cadaverous man with 
reddish side whiskers, had shouted four or five times : "All 



GOING TO HOULTON 133 

aboard !" the train started. I was prepared for some rapid 
riding 1 and began to catch my breath when they commenced 
to score as the jockeys do at the race-course. We would go up 
a quarter of a mile and suddenly stop. The erratic movement 
would precipitate me to the south end of the seat. The seats 
ran lengthwise of the cars and were covered with oilcloth. 
Then there would be a sudden retrograde motion back to the 
starting point, with the same unexpected halt, throwing the 
passengers back to "first mentioned bound," as they say in 
writing deeds. 

This playful manner of entertaining the guests continued 
till they got the engine warmed up and a final "All aboard!" 
sent us off. What a rattling of brake chains, clanking of coup- 
ling links and pins and creaking and groaning of the body poli- 
tic that delapidated array of moving vehicles made ! 

We arrived, at length, at Eel River, where we stopped an 
hour. On inquiring, it was discovered that the train was ahead 
of time, and must wait until the sun caught up with us. It 
seemed that it was usual to run off the track every trip, and so 
time was allowed for that performance, but, on that particular 
occasion, the cars kept the track; so we didn't need the extra 
hour. 

Eel River was not a very picturesque hamlet. On three 
sides of the station was sawdust ; and I noticed that they were 
burning sawdust on the fourth side. There is nothing very 
inspiring in a field of champed up timber, so the delay became 
tedious, and I even longed for some more toboggan slides on 
that slippery oilcloth. Eel River, a year or two afterwards, 
was the scene of a strange comradeship. 

One day there was a meeting of a lodge of Orangemen, on 
the twelfth of July, and some of the boys of Houlton were 
there. There was also some fine, Protestant whiskey in evi- 
dence, and this had been rather freely circulated; Pat Murphy 
came along and, not knowing the peculiar mission of the con- 
vivial picnickers, accepted a half dozen drinks or so. Then thev 



134 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

got Pat upon a barrel to make a speech which he did, in these 
words: "My friends, I'm wid ye, but not of ye." This ex- 
pression has been, ever since, an explanation of conduct that is 
a little peculiar. 

We only scored three times before starting from this place. 
The only delay was caused by stopping to let a few farmers off 
at cross-roads, and to take aboard a woman or two who had 
been berrying. At length, Debec was reached. Here Mother 
Earth was again seen. There was some green grass and a few 
trees. The conductor began to look cheerful, and, as the road 
to Houlton was down hill, the first attempt sent us off at a speed 
of ten miles an hour. In due time we arrived at Houlton and 
smiling Mike Welsh drove me to the Snell House. 

I spent the first night in Houlton at the home of Deacon 
Barnes. On the following day I engaged the school and re- 
turned home. In a week I started for Houlton with a horse 
and wagon. The drive was a delightful one through the 
woods. The road was a reminder of the Aroostook War. 
When the outlook seemed to prophesy war between the United 
States and England, the government built a broad road, four 
rods wide, from Mattawamkeag to Houlton. The road was 
nearly straight and so well built that it was in good condition 
in eighteen hundred and seventy-five. Most of the way was 
through woods, with an occasional clearing breaking the monot- 
ony. Over this road had been conveyed all the supplies for 
Aroostook county before the railroad had been built. Over the 
same hundreds of teams had hauled the buckwheat, oats, and 
shingles that Aroostook sent to market. 

There had been, consequently, hotels built at convenient 
distances along the whole route, for the accommodation of the 
traveler and the teamsters. Some of those hotels were very 
commodious and had done a large amount of business. One 
room they all had sure, — the bar-room, and I judged by the 
length of the counters, running completely across the room, 
that great accommodations were needed in that line. The hotels 



GOING TO HOULTON 



135 



fell into disuse and decay after the railroad reached Houlton. 
Some were closed, some used for private dwellings, and a very 
few still remained public houses. Not one on the whole road 
looked very inviting. Somehow an old, delapidated hotel, with 
signboard still reeling in the wind, with windows broken and 
paint all gone, is the most desolate appearing of all ruins. 

There is always something wierd about an old, deserted 
hotel. When a boy, driving a team to Bangor, I used to pass 
by a deserted house which once had been occupied as a public 
house. There was connected with the house the old story 
about the murdered peddler. I used to wonder how so many 
peddlers could be murdered, and still see peddlers going by every 
day. I never heard of a haunted house that had not a peddler 
hidden in some mysterious way, in the cellar. The house men- 
tioned was undoubtedly tenanted by an uneasy ghost, since a 
reliable inhabitant assured me that strange noises were heard 
there nights. 

It seems strange that a sedate, business-loving peddler while 
in life, should spend his spiritual existence in rattling chains, 
and pounding the ceiling, and making night hideous. It was 
a great relief when some tramps burned that old house. 

I spent a night on my journey to Houlton in one of those 
old Inns. The landlord was an antiquated specimen of fossil 
that time had somehow preserved. With long, uncombed hair 
hanging down to his shoulders, with beard growing wild like 
bramble bushes, and eyes peering out from sockets nearly closed, 
he allowed I could stay in sepulchral tones that made a shiver 
pervade the entire lumbar region. 

The ancient wife, with a black clay pipe in her mouth, gave 
a geneological history of her numerous family. The old man 
spent most of the evening bewailing the degenerate times the 
railroad had caused. It took him an hour longer to do this on 
account of the fearful amount of profanity used. 

The chamber was a large one, with bare floor, in which 
were countless punctures made by the calks of the river-driv- 



136 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

ers' boots. The old lady informed me that room was the best 
room in the good old times, and bride and bridegroom had often- 
times occupied it. In the old days, when a couple was married 
in Aroostook, the bridal tour was a trip to Bangor by stage. 
If the happy couple came back still happy, future felicity was 
assurred. 

The road from Mattawamkeag ran seven miles through 
the woods, over a series of hills to Molunkus. Here was a small 
settlement, constantly growing smaller. From that place to 
Linneus there were few hills. Some parts of the drive were de- 
lightful. In one place tall elms, a century old, waved on both 
sides of the road, through the branches of which one could catch 
a glimpse of a small lake not far off. A long swamp with 
stunted <;rees disconsolately standing alone made a drive of an 
hour rather dreary, but soon "Happy Corner" made its appear- 
ance. I applied at a wretched looking house for lodging, but 
a tow-headed, shabby looking girl informed me that the woman 
was in jail for selling rum and the husband was on a spree. 

I drove on to the next place where at Haynesville good 
accommodations were obtained. The weather was delightful. 
An occasional partridge would whirr across the road, frighten- 
ing the horse and arousing me from a sleepy reverie ; then a 
timid rabbit would, with bewildered uncertainty, scurry hither 
and thither out of the road ; a few hawks screeched as they sailed 
by and squirrels laughed and quarreled as the mood came on 
them. 

The time was conducive to reverie, to musing and remi- 
niscences of the past. I pictured to myself that motley caval- 
cade of bold militia men as they unflinchingly plunged into 
that wild wilderness, determined to conquer, to return captains, 
colonels, nay, generals, or die on the banks of the winding 
Meduxnekeag. Caparisoned horses, champing the bit and toss- 
ing plumes in the air, drew those murderous six-pounders, 
flanked on each side by galloping cavalry and supported by un- 
ter rifled infantry. I could fancy the echo of the hurried com- 



GOING TO HOULTON 137 

mand, given in high falsetto, still reverberated from tree to tree 
and awakened a spirit of martial glory in every patriot's soul. 
A line of an old poem came to mind ; "I see them on their wind- 
ing way ; About their ranks the moonbeams play." There was 
all the "Circumstance and pomp of glorious war." How dif- 
ferent the return! That was all summed up in a line of an old 
poem. 

" 'Run, Strickland, Run ! 

Fire, Stover, Fire !' 

Were the last words of Mclntyre." 

I passed over that road years later with my daughter. We en- 
joyed the trip exceedingly most of the way, but when we came 
to the seven miles of unbroken forest, we found an exasperating 
condition of things. The State was repairing the road, and 
the commissioner had plowed the entire roadbed for more than 
three miles, and left it in furrows. It had rained the day after, 
and thus we found the highway ! There was no chance to walk 
by the roadside as it was flooded. That poor little horse, weigh- 
ing eight hundred, had to pull us over that long stretch of road, 
carpeted with ten inches of mud. 

When we were about half way over it, a man was seen 
walking before us. We noticed the peculiar way he used his 
feet. He lifted the right foot up very high, with a sort of 
spasmodic yerk, as a horse does who has the string-halt ; then 
it went down like a pile-driver, scattering the muddy water in 
every direction. We finally overtook that man who, without 
stopping to say "Good-day," commenced to explode from his 
mouth the most extraordinary mixture of denunciation and 
profanity that those forests ever heard. If that commissioner 
had been within hearing, he would have learned his duty. 
We listened very sympathetically : barring the profanity, we 
agreed with him. When we had passed by, looking back, we 
saw that man walking along quietly, and stepping in ordinary 
manner. The dynamic force within had expended itself and 
the natural man asserted himself. 



138 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Not long after we met two cyclists on a pleasure trip. They 
had to tramp three miles through that sticky, clayey mud and 
push the machines. There is generally on the face of a pleasure- 
seeking cyclist a look that implies great satisfaction with him- 
self, and a sort of ownership of the world. That look was not 
visible on the occasion mentioned. We thought the desire of 
the heart was that expressed by King Richard on that fatal 
field of battle. 

On my trip to Houlton I wore a light suit with straw hat. 
After four day's riding over a dusty road, it seemed best to make 
a change of garments ; so I stopped at Linneus and got some 
dinner, and changed the light suit for a dark one. There were 
several inquisitive girls at the house who were much interested 
in my movements. I learned afterwards they expressed the 
opinion that I was a horse thief, escaping into New Brunswick. 

I arrived in Houlton in the afternoon on Saturday, and 
commenced to teach the following Monday ; and continued 
that work for ten years. The family remained at Monson dur- 
ing that year. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

HOULTON ACADEMY. 

I found the school in a peculiar condition at Houlton. The 
former teacher was engaged to teach for another year, but, for 
some reason, did not ; and, consequently, when the time came 
for opening the school, no teacher was apparent. 

This school had been accepted by the trustees of Colby 
College as a "fitting school." The trustees agreed to endow 
the school and furnished teachers and all necessary means for 
prosecuting school work. The Academy was managed by a 
Board of Local Trustees, conjointly with a board nominated by 
the College Trustees. Dr. Shaw was the pastor of the Bap- 
tist church in Houlton and a member of the Board. Charles 
E. Williams, A. B., a recent graduate of Colby, had been en- 
gaged as assistant in the school by the trustees. 

Dr. Shaw commenced the school as principal and managed 
it for a week. I then appeared and assumed control. The 
Dr. attempted to do but little teaching and less governing. Mr. 
Williams taught the Latin and Greek in the recitation room, 
as did Miss Madigan, the French. For a day or two chaos 
reigned, and T was simply an element in the confusion, hut 
soon there was a calm ; and within a week the machinery ot 
the school was in running order. The "Faculty of Instruction" 
as the old catalogue has it. consisted of W. S. Knowlton. princi- 
pal ; C. E. Williams, A. B., teacher of Latin and Greek; Miss 
Fannie Madigan, teacher of French: James Archibald, assistant 
in mathematics. 



I 4 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

The reader will notice that I spell that word catalogue 
the old way. I cannot endure the sight of the word, mutilated 
by the modern utilitarian idea. "Catalog!" Just look at the 
word. Don't it look like a big, shaggy dog with his tail cut off ; 
or a Chinaman minus a cue, or a kite without a tail? 

I have before me, as I wrote, many old catalogues, and a 
feeling of sadness inherently steals over me as I glance over the 
list of trustees and pupils. Every member of the board of 
local trustees is dead. One of the Colby Board survives, Deacon 
Moses Giddings of Bangor. 

B. L. Staples was chairman of the Board, whom I shall 
never forget. He showed me much kindness and became my 
friend at once. Dr. Donald became my family physician and 
stanch supporter. With Mr. Cary I had much to do, as he was 
secretary of the board, and my friend. The office of the Hon. 
J. C. Madigan and his home became favorite resorts whenever 
I felt tired or discouraged. 

There were one hundred and nine pupils the first term and 
no definite course of study. The work done by the instructors 
would appall a teacher of today. 

I used to commence school at eight o'clock and teach till 
dark and often heard classes at my home, evenings ; but I en- 
joyed the work. Nearly all the pupils were anxious to learn, 
were enthusiastic in the pursuit of knowledge. If pupils only 
knew how much more work they could get out of the teacher by 
doing extra work themselves, they would be more inclined to 
"give and take." I never knew when bed time came as long as 
a class was ready to recite. 

The catalogue of the first year tells me many sad stories ; 
many facts to rejoice at. Thirty-five of that number are sleep- 
ing the long sleep awaiting us all. How many hopes lie buried 
in those premature resting places ! To me they are not dead. 
I stood by no bedside and saw no departure. They live in 
retrospection, and I can see them now, as they sat in that school- 
room, and remember the pleasant hours passed with them. Still 



HOULTON ACADEMY 141 

is the influence of the sweet smile of Eveline Plumm/er linger- 
ing in my soul, which always greeted me when I entered the 
schoolroom. Laura, always so faithful, and Addie so full of 
life, will never be forgotton ; and Ella, whose merry laugh was 
so inspiring; the kind heart of Etta, full of human sympathy 
and love, ceased to beat all too quick. Sweet, gentle Mary 
Hussey's ladylike ways I still recollect, and Winnie will never 
die as long as this heart beats. Georgie Davis and Frank 
Barker, Xutie Nye, all these were pupils whom it is easy to 
remember. Others have also passed away, not one of whom 
would I forget. 

There were many in school that term who have become 
prominent men in the world, of whom mention will be made 
hereafter. The same teachers remained during the year, and 
were very effective co-laborers. Mr. Williams was a fine Greek 
and Latin scholar. He remained in the school four years, when 
he resigned and commenced the study of medicine. He gradu- 
ated from a medical college in New York, and commenced prac- 
tice in Houlton. where he built up a prosperous business, and 
is still in practice. 

Miss Madigan had every requisite that could be combined 
in one woman, hence was a very valuable assistant. Mr. Archi- 
bald was simply James Archibald, Esq., thirty years younger. 
Mrs. Seamons also taught one term very profitably. Mrs. Sea- 
mons has since become a very effective public speaker in reform 
times. Father Pearley taught penmanship, but failed to make 
my chirography intelligible. 

We had a peculiar way of hazing freshmen in those days, 
I used to write something on the board and ask the new schol- 
ars to read it, while the old ones looked on and grjnned. I used 
to pity those bewildered seekers after truth. 

Among the students at Houlton there were an unusual 
number endowed by nature with more than ordinary talent. 
Many of those have fulfilled the promise of youth, and are at 
the present time prominent actors in the affairs of life. 



I 4 2 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

C. C. King, of Caribou, was one of the very brightest Latin 
scholars I ever instructed. He entered college at fifteen. Mr. 
King graduated from Colby and read law with his father. 
After being admitted to the bar, he practiced for a time, then 
went into business and has prospered. He represented Caribou 
for two terms in the Legislature, and was a candidate for the 
Speakership. He is president of a bank in Caribou at the pres- 
ent time. 

Fred Perkins was a bright boy and very studious. Un- 
assuming and modest he gained friends by his merit and had 
many. He entered college and remained for a time and was 
then appointed cadet at West Point and graduated from that 
institution with honor and became an officer in the U. S. army. 
He participated in the Spanish war and was promoted. He now 
holds the rank of captain and is stationed at a fort in New Jer- 
sey. 

Frank Shaw was a fine looking and popular boy, and has 
made a brilliant lawyer out West. He was a very companionable 
young man and hence popular. His mind was analytical, vig- 
orous and discriminating. He was ambitious and deserved to 
succeed. 

James Archibald was one of the first boys who attracted 
my especial attention. He was an indefatigable worker and 
close reasoner. I made a sort of chum of him, but was always 
very careful how I put things when reasoning with him. He 
was what I call an incisive reasoner. He penetrated 
to the interior of every subject, and viewed all argu- 
ments from their relations to the heart of the subject. In 
fine, he was the James Archibald of today in embryo. Mr. Archi- 
bald has a fine legal practice, and is president of the Board of 
Trustees of Ricker Classical Institute. Mr. Archibald's wife 
was also a favorite pupil in the Academy. He asked me once 
whether it would be better to marry, or go to college. I told 
him to go to college. Since I have had the pleasure of meet- 
ing his wife and family at their home, I am sure I was very, 



HOULTON ACADEMY 143 

very wrong in my advice. Mr. Archibald and his admirable 
wife, talented son and sweet daughter, all know how to make 
people happy. 

Ulie Withee commenced to fit for college, but poor health 
caused him to abandon the idea, and he became a dentist ; but 
has not confined himself to that business. He has become a 
wealthy business man, and always was a good fellow. 

H. D. Collins of Caribou sat in the back seat and was 
rather quiet. His mathematical skill show r ed itself at that early 
period. He is a prosperous business man now and highly hon- 
ored by the people. He marks his vote in the second column 
and hence is not always in office. Mr. Collins is doing an 
extensive lumbering and milling business in Caribou. His 
honesty, kindness and interest in every good cause has en- 
deared him to every citizen in the town. 

Arthur Daigle commenced to laugh when three hours old 
and has not stopped yet. 

Charles Weed was a bright student, and his early death 
caused much regret. 

I have lost sight of smiling Byron Blethen. He was the 
gallant of the class and always recited with one eye on the 
girl that sat next to him. 

I remember Howard Carpenter and Dell Mansur with 
pleasant recollection. They entered Bowdoin College, and I 
have lost sight of them. 

Thomas P. Putnam graduated at Colby, read law and com- 
menced practice at Houlton. Mr. Putnam is a lawyer of good 
ability, and just such a lawyer as every town needs. Put him 
into a town full of lawyers, as they go, he would find business. 
Mr. Putnam's mind, when he was a boy, was analytical. He 
always looked at a question from all points of view and drew 
his conclusions with due deliberation. Mr. Putnam has been 
first selectman of Houlton for several years, and this honor 
has been given without the least solicitation. Cincinnatus was 



144 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



called from the plow to serve the people, so has Thomas been 
repeatedly called from his law practice to serve the town. 

F. M. Donnell, a Bayard sans puer et sans reproche, gradu- 
ated from Colby and became a civil engineer after completing 
a course of study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
A sweeter, cleaner young man never lived, and a long and useful 
life seemed opening before him, sed aliter dis. My heart went 
with the hearse that bore that dear boy to the tomb. Mr. Don- 
nell was a young man of fine ability. He had an original way 
of arriving at results in mathematical demonstrations that was 
very remarkable. At the time his health began to fail a move 
was contemplated to place him in a professor's chair at a well- 
known school of science. 

There was a very active young man from Linneus in the 
next class. He was a fine scholar and with the other boys entered 
college. 

Byron was graduated from Colby and engaged in specula- 
tion. He is a very successful politician and has been Secretary 
of State for eight years. 

Dr. Harry Putnam was also a Colby boy. He was a brill- 
iant scholar at Houlton Academy, and ranked high at college. 
He taught for a time in Connecticut and found an excellent 
wife there. He has been very popular for several years as 
Superintendent of the schools of Houlton, and has been very suc- 
cessful in his chosen profession. Harry was in those days a 
keen reasoner and a genial, whole-souled boy. This success 
in life was guaranteed even in those early days. 

Very few families in Maine can claim three college gradu- 
ates. Mrs. Putnam sent her whole family to college — three 
boys, Thomas, Harry and Beecher, and results have shown 
that she made no mistake. Those young men have proved that 
a prophet can receive honor in his own country. They 
have always lived at Houlton and have come to be recognized 
as important factors in the town. All honor to that widowed 



HOULTON ACADEMY 



145 



mother who gave so much to the world. "Her children rise 
up and call her blessed." 

C. E. F. Stetson showed a decided liking for mathematical 
studies, and has become eminent in his profession. I suppose 
Mr. Stetson has hardly a peer in the State in the line of engi- 
neering. He has been constantly employed for many years in 
the most intricate work, requiring great skill. 

F. W. Knowlton, my nephew, was a. good scholar and 
diligent in his work. He was the best declaimer in the school. 
He entered Colby and, after teaching for a time, studied law and 
commenced practice at Foxcroft. Later he received an appoint- 
ment in the treasury department at Washington and was there 
several years and then resumed his law practice at Old Town, 
where he has extensive business relations. He is a fine public 
speaker and believes in Andrew Jackson. 

From Blaine came A. J. Fulton. He was a fine scholar 
and improved every moment. I liked him personally very much 
and invited him home frequently and enjoyed his society. Dr. 
Fulton is a very successful physician, and leading citizen of the 
town. He represented his district in the last legislature with 
credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. I 
also had the pleasure of performing the marriage ceremony 
when he took to himself a wife. She was also a student very 
kindly remembered. 

Parker L. Hardison has made his mark as a surveyor and 
business man. Mr. Hardison has been a candidate for office 
several times and every time run ahead of his ticket, but his party 
has alwavs been in the minoritv and Parker failed to be elected. 
At Houlton Academy he excelled in mathematics. During the 
whole time he was there, he never failed in a mathematical les- 
son. Parker was rather shy of the young ladies in those days 
but improved as time went on and five years ago got married. 
May perpetual prosperity be his ; he deserves it. 

Herbert W. Trafton of Fort Fairfield was a faithful 
student and good scholar. He graduated from Colby and set- 



146 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

tied at Fort Fairfield as a lawyer. He has built up a large prac- 
tice and is held in great esteem by his townsmen. Mr. Trafton 
also rejoices in the luxury of voting with the minority. Mr. 
Trafton is one of those men whose very face reflects the honesty 
of heart that prompts every action. He was just that kind of 
a student at Houlton Academy. He looked at every proposition 
from a moral point of view, and was ever ready to grasp oppor- 
tunity to obtain knowledge and light. Though not devoid of 
a keen sense of humor his energies were constantly devoted to 
the performance of duty first and he had the fun at the proper 
time. It is unfortunate for the country that Mr. Trafton votes 
with the minority in the State of Maine. He has been a candi- 
date for important offices, but the returns were unpropitious. 
We need just such men as he in office. 

F. G. Dunn was a quiet, studious young man who did not 
especially enjoy declaiming. He graduated at Colby, read law 
and settled at Ashland, where he is a sort of mayor, alderman, 
chief justice and financier. Mr. Dunn is what everybody calls 
a good fellow and has a lucrative practice. For some unac- 
countable reasons he has never married. I am sure he is in 
great danger every leap year. 

J. K. Plummer was a diligent student, faithful in all his 
work and a fine young man. He entered Colby and later studied 
law and was admitted to the bar, but his extensive business 
transactions preclude practice. He has lately returned from 
a trip to Europe. 

I recall with great pleasure a pleasant-faced young man 
from Presque Isle. He stayed at our house his first night in 
Houlton. He was very studious and quiet among the boys and 
was salutatorian at graduation. G. Edward Wilkins is now a 
member of the A. H. Fogg corporation. I expected him to go 
to college, but he did better by selecting an excellent young 
lady and securing an exceptionally fine wife. Mr. Wilkins is 
today one of the most popular business men in the county, and 
deserves thus to be. His social qualities are exquisite, his 



HOULTON ACADEMY 1 47 

business methods are unquestioned. Mr. Wilkins is par ex- 
cellent — an ideal business man. I never could understand why 
a man need be disagreeable because he is smart or talented. Mr 
Wilkins would have made an efficient professional man had he 
willed. 

John B. Madigan was at the Academy for a time and made 
a good record prognostic of the coming man. He was a 
young man of excellent judgment. He showed that in his choice 
of a wife. He has large business relation and extensive legal 
practice. A few years ago he was elected representative to 
Augusta though the district was opposed in politics. Mr. 
Madigan is a logical reasoner and carefully investigates as he 
proceeds in his argument. He has been a member of the school 
board for several years. He is also chairman of the Examin- 
ing Board for admittance to the bar. Mr. Madigan is popular 
among the citizens of the town and state. 

Cunard Miller was a studious boy : He did like to have 
some fun occasionally, but I liked the boy just the same and 
was sorry when he left the school to engage in mercantile affairs. 
He is now in business in Fredericton, N. B. Mr. Miller's name 
recalls the many pleasant visits I made to the family home of 
Cunard. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were very kind to me, and at 
no house did I enjoy more pleasure than in that pleasant home 
and with that companionable family, and have never thought 
a visit to Houlton complete without calling upon the Millers. 

Beecher Putnam, the third boy in the Putnam family, after 
graduation, taught for a time, and then read law. He has 
always been much interested in politics, and is one of the pillars 
of the Republican party. He has twice been Senator from 
Aroostook. He was one of the committee for the revision of 
the Statutes of Maine. Mr. Putnam is a natural orator and a 
great lover of nature. While at the Academy, he was an extra- 
ordinary scholar, and a fluent speaker even at that early stage 
of life. 



148 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

R. W. Shaw was another very active young man. He ex- 
celled in rhetoric and ethical studies. His reasoning powers 
were good. He first took a general survey of the subject and 
endeavored to find the weak spot in the adversary's defense and 
that spot he attacked. Mr. Shaw is a successful lawyer 
and politician. He was county attorney of Aroostook county 
for two terms and senator at Augusta. Mr. Shaw is an orator 
and has done considerable stumping in the past five years. R. 
W. can plead a case in court, prove the Republican party im- 
maculate, sing a song and tell a good story with equal and ex- 
quisite grace. 

Charles Carrel was an industrious student with a decided 
determination to "get there." He showed early in life that he 
would one day be a millionaire. Mr. C. graduated from col- 
lege, read law, and opened an office at Houlton, where he has a 
lucrative practice. My impression is if the Democrat party ever, 
in the dim future, should be victorious Charles would be a very 
successful politician. His persuasive powers are invincible. 

P. H. Gillen was a very enthusiastic student always ambi- 
tious, busy and painstaking. He showed in the Lyceum debates 
that public speaking would be his especial forte. Mr. Gillen 
read law with Judge Stearns and opened an office in Bangor. 
That city was at that time well supplied with eminent lawyers, 
and to me it seemed a rash adventure for an unknown young 
man to make. But talent told and in a very short time Mr. 
Gillen became recognized as an astute lawyer. His practice has 
increased year by year till at the present time it includes many 
cases in which thousands of dollars are involved. Mr. Gillen 
in the old days even when a boy reasoned from cause to effect 
in a most critical way and then showed that effects could have 
had no other cause than the one he had assigned. He never 
left a subject unfinished. Maine has few orators equal to Mr. 
Gillen. His rhetoric is never turgid and his eloquence never 
flags but rather captivates. A brilliant future awaits P. H. Gil- 
len and he deserves it. A friend that never grows cold, a citi- 



HOULTON ACADEMY 149 

zen always interested in public matters, tolerant in religion and 
conservative in politics P. H. can but have hosts of friends and 
innumerable admirers. 

Monticello sent us a fine young man by the name of Guy C. 
Fletcher. He was very studious and smart. Could handle 
mathematics with perfect ease. I enjoyed his society and 
sought it frequently. Mr. Fletcher was postmaster under the 
administration of Grover. and is now a prosperous business 
man in Monticello and Bridgewater, and a first-class good fel- 
low generally. 

Later, Bertram L. Fletcher was a member of the school. 
He was a good classical scholar and attended strictly to busi- 
ness, with an occasional lapse "pro bono calico." He read law 
and is practicing in Bangor with profit. 

From New Brunswick came the Bradstreet boys. They 
were studious and smart and have made good records for them- 
selves. Fuller is a prosperous farmer in Bridgewater, and one 
of the School Board. Asa is a trader and Superintendent of 
Schools. Henry is a prosperous man in California. 

Chas. Brown, now a prosperous man of affairs in Califor- 
nia, I enjoyed very much. Charles was an excellent young man 
and would have been a clergyman had his health permitted. 
He had the qualifications to have made him eminent in that 
profession. Of Chas. Parker, the parson, I now know nothing 
but feel sure that he dresses well wherever he is. 

Among the boys in those days was a young man who trans- 
lated Latin elegantly. Walter Cary is a successful lawyer, but 
I feel sure that he would have made an eminent literary man, 
had he devoted himself to that pursuit. His knowledge of 
Latin was so pronounced in college that he became known as 
"Judv," a pet name of Colby's most famous teacher of Latin. 
Few men have as good vocabulary of English words, and very 
few know how to use them as well as Mr. Cary. I hope he will 
devote a portion of his time to literary pursuits. 



150 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



From Linneus one day came a tall, rather shy looking young 
man whose name I learned was Ira G. Hersey. Mr. Hersey 
even in those days showed a predisposition toward that remark- 
able eloquence that captures juries and confounds political 
opponents at the present time. I voted for Mr. Hersey once 
for Congressman or Governor I have forgotten which, but my 
vote did not seem to turn the scale and he was not elected. Mr. 
Hersey was a great worker. If he could not solve a problem in 
one hour he took two, if he could not pronounce a word right 
the first time he kept at it till he and Noah Webster coincided. 
He was a young man of more than common ability and 
improved every hour in earnest study. Ability and industry 
have placed him in the "upper story" that Daniel Webster 
recommended. 

Another family at Houlton contributed three boys to the 
school. The Hon. A. A. Burleigh sent his three sons to college, 
all of whom graduated. Everett, known as the deacon ; Preston, 
the mathematician ; and Parker, the ladies' man. Everett was 
much engrossed in the science of anatomy. His desk was 
always full of dry bones. One day I found therein the entire 
skeleton of a Frenchman's defunct "cheval." Everett would 
have made a second Darwin had he not gotten rich in land 
speculation. 

Preston N. Burleigh was one of the keenest original 
mathematical thinkers I ever knew. Propositions in Geometry 
vanished before his glance like the mist of the morning. All 
he had to learn was the theorem. The solution evolved itself 
from his inner consciousness. I have always been sorry that 
Mr. Burleigh did not become a mathematical author. I am sure 
he would have succeeded. Mr. B. is a fine business man ; but 
though he becomes a millionaire, the world will have lost some- 
thing. 

Parker Burleigh was a good Latin and all-round scholar. 
He was the best natured boy in school, and had a smile for 
everybody. He read law after graduating, and practiced for a 



HOULTON ACADEMY 151 

time. He is, at this time, extensively employed in lumber and 
mill matters. 

H. T. Green of Hodgdon was a very polite young man and 
a good scholar. That such a fine looking young man should 
have escaped matrimony is surprising. 

Prof. F. W. Watson was a studious young man with much 
literary ability. He was a good speaker and fine writer. Mr. 
Watson wrote poetry that deserved notice and received it. He 
graduated at Colby and became professor in a college in North 
Carolina, and has attracted much attention, in many states of 
the Union by his researches and lectures in the field of micro- 
scopic science. Mr. W. was a very pleasant man to meet. With 
him at the school was his sister Laura, a lovely young lady whom 
I remember with much pleasure. She is now the wife of a well 
known teacher in New Brunswick. 

Aubrey White was the financier of the school and will 
probably die a multi-millionare. Mr. White is now in the West 
exploiting irrigation schemes and other financial ventures. 
Aubrey was always a good fellow and ready to help things 
along. He is the kind of a man that ought to get rich. 

Chas. Dunn, Jr., last year at Portland executing righteous 
law in a secant way. was simply the grown up Charlie 
Dunn of the Houlton Academy. He was a young man of good 
ability and excellent purposes and one of the most companion- 
able men I ever met. I have always thought Charles should 
have been a clergyman. That young man could no more have 
done a mean or doubtful act than fly. He wore his "heart upon 
his sleeve" as far as his moral sense went. His health has never 
been good but he has done a vast amount of work and is most 
highly respected for his works. His personality caused the 
Republican Governor of Maine to appoint him, a Democrat, 
sheriff of Cumberland Co. when Mr. Pearson died. I know no 
man more worthy of positions of trust than Chas. Dunn. Jr. 

And Parker, the poet. Will his glory ever fade? No, not 
as long as his immortal poem adorns the book shelves of the old 



152 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

graduates of Houlton Academy and is preserved in the archives 
of that venerable institution. We quote in another place a few 
stanzas of that poem for the benefit of the boys who have unfor- 
tunately lost the copy purchased many years ago for a nickel. 

I remember as yesterday the first time I saw David F. 
Smith. He came from Cary and was rather bashful. He was 
tall and not very graceful in gait but on the first day of his 
attendance at school I recognized the existence of a gigantic 
brain within the head of that young man. He would master 
the most extraordinary tasks with the greatest ease when once 
determined upon doing so. Mr. Smith has been district judge 
in Montana for several years and is one of the most popular 
men in the West and a polished gentleman. In his boyhood 
days Mr. Smith had a masterful way of analyzing a subject or 
problem. I used to state propositions to him purposely to 
observe his method of thought. He had somehow an intuitive 
way of getting at facts and when once a fact became indisputable 
he seemed to see at a glance every line of thought leading to 
that fact. 

Walter Nickerson paid his whole attention to his books and 
made excellent progress. I always enjoyed the company of Mr. 
Nickerson. His kindly disposition and genial smile made many 
friends. He is now a man of affairs in Houlton. At the school 
at that time was a sweet-faced young lady that won her way to 
my heart at once. She was an excellent scholar and a lady. 
She later became Mrs. Walter A. Nickerson. She died last 
fall and I cannot write her name but with moistened eye, and 
while I remember my sweet mother, shall I remember Clara 
Tracy Nickerson. 

And Dr. Nickerson was there too. He was just as fond 
of hunting as now, and, if I remember rightly, I had to hunt for 
him sometimes, but he always turned up smiling. 

W. E. Parsons was a student at the Academy a short time. 
He is now a lawyer in Foxcroft with an extensive practice. He 
was senator from Piscataquis county a few years ago. Mr. 



HOULTON ACADEMY 153 

Parsons is regarded as a very eloquent speaker. He has been 
one of the leading politicians of the county for some years. Mr. 
Parsons will undoubtedly be heard of hereafter in a broader 
field of politics. 

Amos Putnam was never in a hurry, but he always had his 
lessons prepared. I always liked the boy. He was fitted for 
college but did not go. I think it was a mistake. 

Arba Powers, the author, comedian, and the "and so forth" 
man, was what teachers sometimes call a "case." One day he, 
without the slightest warning, burst out in a hearty laugh. I 
asked him what the matter was and he replied. "I read a funny 
story, last night, and just saw the point." 

I remember John Harrigan and his sister with pleasant 
reminiscences. They were both bright and industrious. She 
is now the wife of Mr. Benjamin Feeley, an officer in the custom 
house. 

C. P. Barnes was a good student and excelled in Latin. 
I always like the boy for the talent he showed, and for the fun 
that he enjoyed, at times. Charles is a lawyer and is a success. 
He certainly had the ability to be. He is now county attorney 
of Oxford county. 

William Braden, I remember as a ladies' man but he was 
faithful in his work and methodical in every particular. His 
examples were put on the blackboard with perfect precision. 
Mr. Braden, I understand, is still discussing the old question — 
to marry or not to marry. 

E. E. Churchill known as "Foley" was the boy that on 
examination day, when he was explaining the affinity of the 
magnet, placed it upon my gold watch lying upon the table and 
said "It has no attraction for brass." Mr. Churchill has pros- 
pered in financial matters and is at present keeping a first-class 
hotel in Presque Isle. 

No record of Houlton Academy would be complete without 
a recognition of Colonel F. M. Flemming of Missouri. The 
Colonel was a good scholar and has made his mark in the West 



154 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

as a Democratic politician. The Colonel is extensively employed 
in financial matters and civic problems in Kansas City. He was 
a candidate for senator last November, but he and Parker went 
down together in the political landslide. I remember the 
Colonel had a very pretty sister, now living in the West. 

Poor Mark White, a very bright boy, he sleeps in an early 
grave. He spent an evening with us at Caribou. By chance 
there were present four or five of the old girls and boys. Do 
the best we could, there seemed to be a pall of sadness hanging 
over us that evening. Mark was very silent and sad. Within 
a week he was dead with the typhoid fever. 

Teague, Cottle and Gorham were all good boys, and went to 
college after I left Houlton. Teague was a very busy boy and 
had good ability. He married an admirable young lady, also a 
student of Houlton Academy, and is now a prominent teacher. 

Bradbury Cottle, after graduation, was admitted to the bar 
and practiced in Bangor with success, but soon ill health com- 
pelled him to retire, and soon after he joined the "silent major- 
ity." Mr. Cottle's name reminds me that I had more students 
from Deacon Cottle's family than from any other one family. 
George Cottle was one of my most esteemed pupils, and he is 
just the same man today he promised to be in those days. Six 
members of the family attended the Academy, all of whom I 
remember with pleasure. 

George A. Gorham, Jr., is a lawyer in Houlton, and has 
extensive business relations. He was a fine declaimer and good 
Latin scholar. He was always a good fellow and merits the 
success that has come to him. We enjoyed many social chats 
at his father's house. 

James Dougherty was a very industrious pupil and won his 
way into my soul the first term. He was a good scholar and 
popular among the pupils. Mr. Dougherty graduated from 
college and studied law, and is, at this time, a very successful 
practitioner in Springfield, Mass. He married Miss Hattie 



HOULTON ACADEMY 155 

Madigan, a most admirable young lady, for whom I had the 
highest regard. 

Thomas, a brother of James, attended Houlton Academy a 
few terms, and is now a rising practitioner in law in Houlton. 

W. T. Spear was a very active young man, and a firm 
believer in the unterrified Democracy. He is doing a good 
business at Fort Fairfield. The irrepressible George Welch 
still appears before my wondering eyes. From Fort Fairfield 
came George Cary. Mr. Cary was a lovable young man with 
great ability. He made rapid progress in his studies and was 
very popular with pupils and teachers. He has become an 
excellent man of business and has amassed a fortune. George 
always was one of the best fellows in the world. 

Dr. Fred White was very quiet, always in order and a good 
scholar. He has built up a lucrative practice in the West. 

T. C. White, also of Littleton, was a hard student and never 
neglected his studies. He has long been a prominent clergy-man 
in the Methodist church and is now stationed at Newport. I 
very much enjoyed meeting him last summer and reviewing old 
times. 

But the list would include the whole catalogue should I 
mention all the boys who have distinguished themselves. I feel 
that I am warranted in claiming that no school in Maine in ten 
years ever had so large a percentage of boys who became promi- 
nent in practical life. Nearly every one came from families 
comparatively poor and the boys had, to quite a degree, make 
their own way. The relationship existing between these young 
men and myself was peculiar. It was not that usually existing 
between teacher and scholar, but rather it was the brotherhood 
of men engaged in intellectual pursuits. The boys liked me and 
I loved them all and was interested in all that concerned them. 
The many family meetings we used to hold in the old Packard 
house on Court street kept me young and permitted me to use 
whatever influence I possessed to stimulate them to lofty ideals 
and useful lives. It may not be that a single one was made hgfc- 



156 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

ter by my ministrations, but it is pleasant to meet them now 
and receive the cordial greeting they ever accord to me. I love 
to feel that my life had been so intimately connected with so 
many men, and that I may be kindly remembered by them as a 
teacher and friend who lost no opportunity to prove that friend- 
ship by faithful work in their behalf. 

I have only spoken of the young men, but what was said of 
their superiority can be as truthfully asserted of the young 
ladies. Most of them were young ladies of more than usuaj 
mental capacity, and many were superior in all those graces 
that made them lovely. There were some very fine singers 
a<mong their number. The sweet voices of Lucia and Elloise 
never failed to awaken most pleasureable emotions, and their 
voices were but the index of character and soul. I shall never 
forget sweet May Alexander, stately Jennie Betts, smiling Lydia 
Clark. Patie Hussey was an exceedingly fine scholar in all 
branches. She was an excellent teacher later, and is now the 
wife of C. E. Williams, M. D., of Houlton. 

Miss Carrie Miller was almost the first girl in the school 
that said kind words to the strange teacher. I have never for- 
gotten those words, nor the speaker. 

Etta Braden I always associate with that inevitable Caesar 
in her hand. I was very fond of her. She is now the wife of 
M. M. Clark, clerk of courts and the mother to two college boys. 
Jessie was pretty and bright and is married and lives in Phila- 
delphia. I always liked Miss Lovejoy; she was so smart and 
sunny. 

How all those young ladies come trooping back to my mind, 
as I renew the past, the early and the later ones, in sweet con- 
fusion. Before my mind, at this moment appears a very pretty 
girl, with pink cheeks that pinker grew whenever she blushed, 
with light hair, and pretty blue eyes. She was very nice and 
studied hard; but would sometimes give me a reproving look, 
when I kept her reciting too long. I was very fond of her, but 
used to like to tease her and make her blush. 



HOULTON ACADEMY 1 57 

The Madigan girls were among my finest pupils. They 
were fine scholars and ladies, and are remembered with greatest 
pleasure. 

Miss Anna Barns attended the Academy for several terms, 
and was a much-loved pupil. She also assisted me in the school. 
I have always felt grateful to that young lady for her thought- 
fulness. She helped and encouraged me infinitely more than 
she ever knew. She is now the efficient librarian of the Cary 
Library at Houlton. 

Whenever I felt a little depressed and disheartened, one 
look at the cheerful, smiling face of Carrie Hone of Littleton, 
drove away every vestige of the blues. 

I hope, if a large number of pupils never knew, on earth, 
how much good their very presence did to the worried, anxious 
teacher, they will know it in Heaven. 

One of the young ladies that I always missed was Annie 
Estey. She was a bright scholar and a very pleasant young 
lady. One day, while I was absent from the room, Prof. Estes 
was walking to and fro across the room and Annie was follow- 
ing him with her eyes. He at length said : "Please do not 
look at me, Miss Estey, I am a very bashful young man." She 
smilingly replied: "I couldn't deprive myself of that pleasure 
for anything." 

Aggie McClain-Tabors cheerful smile and studious habits 
always pleased me. She was a good scholar, and a fast friend 
of myself and family. She now lives in Los Angeles, Cal. 

Mrs. Sarah May-Packard boarded at our house and went to 
school. She became an excellent teacher and has the respect of 
all who know her. Alice Porter. Carrie Hogan and Miss Cas- 
sidy, I remember as girls whom I always enjoyed. I do not 
know why I always associate Luella Seeley and Abby Smith 
together in thought, unless it be that they were both very brill- 
iant scholars. Sweet Nutie Nye, whose face I could paint 
today, left us in the very bloom of girlhood, promising so much ; 
making all hearts sad. 



158 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

With much pleasure do I recall the Putnam girls. They 
were all very bright and nice. I believe Chrisie and I used to 
have a tete-a-tete after school sometimes but I liked the girl. 
Cardie, I remember, assisted Father Pearley in his writing classes. 
She is now the wife of Albert L. Putnam, a very prominent citi- 
zen of Houlton, and the happy mother of three college boys and 
a young lady at a seminary. One of whom has recently been 
elected superintendent of schools. Hattie Bradford of Houl- 
ton was just as nice, good-natured and sweet as she is now. 

Ada Staples lived nearby our house and I saw much of 
her. The more I knew her the more I esteemed her. 

I remember, with great pleasure, Myra Seeley and her 
sister Mamie. Mrs. Seeley-Donald was very studious and 
orderly, and had an inspiring, musical laugh that still makes 
her attractive. Mamie was much at our home, a playmate of 
my daughter. Our home was made sad when the light went 
out in that young life. 

Hattie Mayo and May Stetson were fine students from 
Hodgdon. 

The Mulherrin girls were very fine scholars, and have made 
fine teachers. Hannah in the old days showed great enthusi- 
asm in whatever she undertook. She has lost none of it. 

Mattie Nye was a favorite with me. Miss Clara Stimpson 
was a fine mathematician and a very bright young lady in all 
respects. 

Estella Newhouse was one of the very nice young ladies 
whom I especially liked. She has become very proficient in 
music, and spends much time in Boston. 

I used to think, if the Creator should put a model young 
lady into a school, to show what a pupil may be, that her name 
would appear on the record book — Belle Lovejoy. I still think 
so. Every lesson was perfect, and every act that of a lady. 

Five young men assisted me while teaching there. The 
first was C. E. Williams, of whom I have spoken. Mr. Libby 
was with me a short time, and was a fine young man and good 



HOULTON ACADEMY 1 59 

teacher. He died some years ago. W. W. Mayo taught a 
year with success. Mr. Mayo is a fine mathematician. He has 
taught in several prominent schools since, and is now teaching at 
Hodgdon. 

Frank Bullard was a fine scholar and very enthusiastic in 
his work. He went to Germany and studied medicine, and is 
now a physician of great note in Los Angeles, California. Mr. 
Bullard has invented several instruments for surgical purposes, 
which have come into general use. Mr. Bullard's wife is also 
a physician of extensive practice. 

Dr. Estes assisted me one year. He afterwards attended 
John Hopkins University and is now a teacher in Erasmus Hall, 
Brooklyn. 

These young men were all Colby graduates and excellent 
scholars. I have been very fortunate in the assistants who 
worked with me. I never had but one with whom I had the 
least disagreement. 

Several young ladies assisted me in surbordinate positions 
during those ten years. Lucia Rose Madigan was always ready 
to hear a class on call. Miss Lucia was an excellent scholar 
and the best elocutionist in school. There was a charm in her 
voice never equalled by any I ever heard, and it still delights 
her many friends. I can never repay that lady for her kind- 
ness to me. Elloise Bagley Ludwig was teacher of the primary 
department. Happy herself, and throwing sunbeams all around 
her, Elloise was very useful to me, and was duly appreciated. 
Her kindnesses then and oftimes since have planted roses in my 
pathway, whose perfume is a continuous delight. 

Winnie Madigan taught French one term, as did Miss 
Emma Tenny. Both were very efficient teachers, and ladies. 

Mrs. Annie Bradbury taught painting for a year or two and 
thoroughly understood her business. She was an educated and 
admirable lady. Her son James was an industrious student. 
Beecher Putnam assisted in mathematics one term very 
acceptably. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PRESQUE ISLE. 

From Houlton I went to Presque Isle to teach in the St. 
John's school. This school was founded by Bishop Neely. It 
was a day and boarding school. There were about one hun- 
dred pupils. There was a head master and I was selected 
master. There were a classical and English course of study. 
It was my duty to teach Latin, Greek and the sciences. Another 
duty did not please me, I was obliged to sleep in a sort of attic, 
where small bedrooms had been partitioned off for the boys. 
There were seventeen boys and myself in that low, badly venti- 
lated attic. There were many very interesting pupils in that 
school, some of whom have become quite prominent in the 
political and financial world. 

At the middle of the winter term the head master resigned 
and I became head master. Mr. James Vroom of St. Stephens, 
N. B., was called to be my associate. Mr. Vroom was a cul- 
tured man, of great erudition, of keen inceptive powers and high 
moral conceptions. His coming was a great relief to me. The 
school session was opened each morning by the ceremonies of 
the Episcopal church. This was all new to me, the blunders I 
made would make a churchman writhe in agony. I remember 
one morning I asked the choir to sing a certain hymn com- 
pletely through. The singers sang the whole hymn with a quiet 
smile lurking around the mouth. That hymn celebrated the 
glory of every saint in the calendar and one of the teachers 
asked me if I thought it was All Saints' day. 



PRESQUE ISLE l6l 

I was engaged to teach the next year but circumstances 
arose that made this impossible and I went to Caribou. The 
school through poor management and incompetent teachers 
rapidly declined and at last ceased to exist. The buildings are 
now occupied by a Normal school. "Of all sad words of lip or 
pen. the saddest are these ; it might have been." I remember 
many pupils of that school with much pleasure. The pleasant 
smile of Miss Johnson, the music teacher, was refreshing; the 
methodical accuracy of Miss Noland, another teacher, was 
praiseworthy : the quiet after-hour talks with Mr. Vroom I 
shall never forget. Mr. Vroom occupies a prominent govern- 
ment position at the present time in the educational field of 
New Brunswick. 

Can I ever forget Harry Haynes of Bangor? He was not 
a bad boy. but full of fun. One night he came in late and I 
brought him up next morning before the head master, who 
inquired in sharp tones, "Where were you last night?" "At the 
hotel," replied Haynes. "What were you doing there?" "Sing- 
ing." "What did you sing?" was the last question. Haynes 
with childlike innocence beaming from every square inch of his 
chubby face replied with a drawl, "Oh we sang 'Where is my 
wandering boy to-night.' ' Duty elsewhere immediately called 
me from the room. Harry is now a business man connected 
with a hardware firm in Bangor. 

A. W. Dudley, another boy who had been a pupil at Houl- 
ton, the year before, was an excellent scholar, faithful and 
studious. He graduated from Harvard and is now a very suc- 
cessful practitioner in Cambridge. 

Roy F. Bartlett of Caribou, was a very lovable boy, whom 
I came to know so well, and of whom mention will be made here- 
after. 

A. J. Taylor of Caribou, was a fine scholar and has become 
a very prosperous man of affairs. 

Dr. Edgar Sincock of Caribou, was an excellent pupil, 
ii 



1 62 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

never wasting any time, and is a very successful physician and 
business man of Caribou. 

Newman Doyle also of Caribou, was a sort of chum of 
mine. He and I settled many political and theological ques- 
tions that winter. He is one of the wealthy farmers of Aroos- 
took. 

Joel Beal, now an enterprising lawyer in Lewiston, always 
wore a smile of good nature, and Fred Whitney faithfully 
labored over the Anabasis. Fred now graces the legal frater- 
nity. 

I remember with much pleasure pretty Lou Pratt as the 
girl that gave such excellent translations of Virgil. Miss Pratt 
would have been a successful literary character had she devoted 
herself to it. 

Miss Lottie Jenks was also a fine scholar in Latin. The 
tall, fun-loving How boys were fine mathematical scholars, as 
was Allie Herdison and Miss Cleaves. 

W. B. Hall was a good scholar and singer as well. Mr. 
Hall is a successful lawyer at Caribou. Med Hayford I 
remember as the best natured boy in the school, and Charles 
Phair as the most dignified. 

Philip Phair, a very studious boy, is now in Washington, 
D. C. Charles Rolfe is getting rich in Maysville, managing a 
large farm. 

One can see by glancing at this list that few schools contain 
so many pupils who become prominent in after life, in so few 
years. Many of the young ladies became teachers and made a 
success of life in that line and are now happily married. 

Presque Isle is a very pleasant town in which to reside. 
There are many educated and refined people there, whose 
friendship I much enjoyed. The Hon. T. H. Phair, the "Starch 
King," a gentleman and good fellow, showed me much kind- 
ness, as did Col. Allen and Amasa Howe and many others. 
There is a church in Presque Isle that stands upon a lot that 
was given to the society by a gentleman who inserted in the 



PRESQUE ISLE 163 

deed this proviso, "If ever hell-fire is preached in the church 
edifice, this deed shall be null and void." 

In that school at Presque Isle there was a rule that forbade 
all intercourse between the sexes. No boy was allowed to speak 
to a girl anywhere on the school grounds or within the building. 
I remember one day Leon Howe sat in a seat with a young 
lady when the head master came in and said some very sharp 
words to him, closing with these words, "It is an insult to a 
young lady to sit down beside her." Leon replied, "Oh they 
like it all right.' 

The question of co-education presented itself in a new 
light at Presque Isle. Both sexes were in the school, both N 
recited in the same classes but at recess, noon and after school 
no one could even address another of the opposite sex. That 
certainly was a bad arrangement. It led to many clandestine 
meetings in doubtful places. When I became principal of the 
school, I allowed unrestrained intercourse between the young 
men and women in the schoolroom in my presence. The result 
was there were no more secret meetings. If there be a mixed 
school there must be a certain amount of social relations. There 
can be no objection to this if there be proper regulations. The 
result of observation proves quite conclusively that co-educa- 
tion is the best under certain conditions. Small boys and girls 
should go to school together. The boys need the little girls to 
check them in their rougher sports and treatment of each other. 
In my opinion, nothing but evil can come from collecting 
together a score or more of small boys and allowing them to 
direct their own sports and associations. They become rough, 
cruel and unruly. Girls are kind, gentle and lovable. With 
all these commendable traits they become jealous, nervous and 
fault-finding when collected in masses. Allow these boys and 
girls to associate together an hour a day, a great improvement 
will appear in both sexes in a few days. But there comes a time 
when these same boys and girls should be religiously separated 
in school life. There should be no mixed school when the 



l^ THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

pupils are from ten to sixteen years of age. The boy at this 
age has ceased to be a child and has not become a man. He is 
restless, noisy and don't know what to do with himself. He 
now for a time needs perhaps the rough and tumble experience 
that his fellows give him. He must run and jump, box and 
wrestle or he surely will get into mischief. He does not under- 
stand why the girl that two years ago would run races with 
him, climb trees and scuffle with him, will not do so now. He 
cannot assimilate himself to her prim ways. She no longer has 
any influence for good over him, and he is an injury to her. Of 
course, I am speaking of the real boy. That cyclone of human- 
ity that will skate all day and half of the night and sleep till 
noon on the morrow, who can handle a gun like a veteran and 
fish till the brooks are dry, who never sees a new boy without 
desiring to wrestle with or fight him ; that generous, tempest- 
uous makeup, saucy and irreverent specimen of genus homo that 
can illy brook any authority or be influenced by gentle means. 
With hands in his pockets, hat on one side, with almost defiant 
mien he strides over mother earth with but one idea, to make 
all the noise he can and have some fun. His pleasures are 
almost wholly of the physical order. That's the boy that will 
one day stride into the governor's chair or gracefully sit behind 
the Senatorial desk. 

"God bless the unspoiled boy of fourteen. Prince thou art, 
the grown up man only is republican." 

There is but one really counteracting influence that can 
very much shape that young adventurer's career — the undying 
influence of a discreet mother. Father just now is not a factor. 
He has become the "old man" but at no time in his life does the 
boy love his mother as at the age mentioned. His older sisters 
don't want the awkard fellow near them at all. Father frets 
over his disastrous attempts to do any thing just right. His 
hands and feet are always in his own way, but mother takes him 
to her heart and excuses all blunders, lets him sleep mornings 
to his heart's content, and her he loves. Then let that boy 
receive his education in those years from the mother that bore 



PRESQUE ISLE 165 

him, from the attrition received from his boy associates, control- 
ling discipline of a wise, conscientious, boy-loving' teacher. 

Of the effeminate boy I say nothing; the boy that never 
whoops and turns somersaults, who at twelve and thirteen 
wants to be a Beau Brummel, who would make a dudish gallant 
of himself, and begins to play the sweetheart, of that boy I have 
no hopes. Better dress him like Achilles in female attire and 
give him a female doll to caress. 

At sixteen or seventeen the boys and girls should be 
brought together again at school. Manhood has settled down 
upon the erstwhile boy, not in full degree, but sufficient to 
change his whole nature. The mental, the ethical begin to dis- 
place physical pleasures. The young man now sees attractive 
qualities in his old associates. He seeks her society, but not in 
its old way. He wishes to appear at his best in her presence, 
he will sacrifice something for her benefit. He is pleased when 
she smiles upon him and unhappy when she frowns. Her nice, 
ladylike ways leads him to be gentle, courteous and well-man- 
nered. Tn fine, the associations are altogether happy to him as 
long as the platonic relation exists. The young lady needs his 
influence as well. By conversing with him she enters a broader 
field of thought than girls are inclined to occupy. Through 
the association mentioned, she becomes more self-reliant. In 
teaching him by example, she becomes more confirmed in her 
rules of right and propriety. She learns that certain qualities 
must be exhibited to attract him and those she assumes. Thus, 
they help each other develop and educate the opposite sex. 

The optimistic views of these last two gentlemen were a 
great help to me. If Mr. Howe should wake up some morning 
on a desert isle in the Arctic ocean, he would go to cutting ice 
before breakfast for some southern market. 

I remember with gratitude the kindness of Deacon Wilkins, 
Harry Thayer, Mr. Pipes, Mr. Jenks and many others. 

Of course I knew the Rev. Mr. Parks. Who didn't? He 



166 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

is still alive or I should have written a long obituary in these 
papers. If I survive him I shall take occasion to do so. 

Whatever Presque Isle starts in to do is done with impetu- 
ous vigor. While I was teaching there a bachelor one day 
seemed to have conceived the idea of taking to himself a wife. 
He proceeded to immediately interview a young lady about the 
matter. He evidently negotiated in the right quarter. For a 
month his place of business knew him but little, then they were 
married and "have lived happily ever since." That was busi- 
ness. 

Presque Isle in the very beginning of its existence became 
very much interested in education, and very soon an academy 
was established there. The funds of the academy were, in 1885, 
turned over to the St. John's Classical School, with the arrange- 
ment that this school should serve the double purpose of academy 
and boarding school. The St. John's School ceased to satisfy 
the needs of the town after a few years, and the town built a 
fine High School building and have since maintained a High 
School of superior rank. Some four years ago those enter- 
prising people decided to have a Normal School at Presque Isle. 
To determine was to do. The Legislature granted the charter 
and the school was started. Last winter a large sum was voted 
to build a dormitory. The school is in a very flourishing condi- 
tion. 

An incident occurred near Presque Isle some thirty or more 
years ago that was new to Maine. There was a man working 
around town who had become a public nuisance. He broke 
into David Dudley's store one night and stole some articles. 
The deputy sheriff, Granville Hayden, with a Boston commercial 
man went to a camp in Mapleton to arrest the burglar. They found 
him in a camp, arrested him and allowed him to sleep that night 
with them in the camp. In the night that brute arose, seized 
an axe, and killed the two men. A posse arrested him the next 
day and toward evening started for Presque Isle. On the way 
a crowd of people met the posse, took the man from the sleigh 



P RES QUE ISLE i6> 

and hanged him to a limb of a tree. I visited his grave while 
in town, and could but feel that justice had been done if I did 
not quite agree with the method of procedure. 

For a few months I was editor of a paper. I found the 
position required more labor and brains than I had thought. I 
liked the work and desired to continue in it, but circumstances 
were not favorable. I do feel that the editor of a country news- 
paper holds a very responsible position in the community, and 
can do a large amount of good — or evil. A paper placed every 
week in the hands of the young does to a large degree shape 
their thought. Many an editor, could he but know that his 
weekly utterances had done more than father or mother in 
moulding the character of the boy reader, would be more care- 
ful in his utterances. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CARIBOU. 

From Presque Isle I went to Caribou. The establishment 
of that school illustrates the energy and determination of the 
hustling citizens of that wide-awake town. 

I received a letter one day from Caribou asking if I would 
go to that town to teach. I replied that they had no house, no 
funds, no organization. The next day Mr. Bartlett appeared 
with a paper signed by six responsible citizens guaranteeing me 
One Thousand Dollars for a year's work. I agreed to gp. 
This was the first of August. Mr. Bartlett, C. B. Roberts, Mr. 
Taylor and others went to work to get things ready for a High 
School. They rented an unoccupied store, had some seats 
manufactured, black-boards made and all other necessary appara- 
tus. Then a paper was circulated among the citizens who sub- 
scribed twenty-five dollars apiece for the support of a school. 
In this way two hundred and fifty dollars were raised ; next a 
meeting of the voters of the district was called and the same 
amount was voted, which entitled the district to receive two 
hundred fifty dollars from the State. The remaining two 
hundred fifty was to be met by tuitions. All this was done 
within a month. On September first I appeared at Caribou 
and commenced the school. There were nearly a hundred 
scholars the first day. Among them were seven who had been 
pupils at Presque Isle. The task of classifying that heterogen- 
eous mass into distinct classes was no light task. There was 
lots of hard work required in the first term. The room was too 
small, the ventilation very bad and the light insufficient. In 



CARIBOU 169 

one part of the room where molasses had been sold the floor 
was still sticky, and when the room was hot there was a tend- 
ency toward a fixedness of position that prevented rapid pro- 
gression. In another corner of the room there still remained 
the unpleasant odor of kerosene. I sat the red-headed boy as 
far from that corner as possible. Over my table the plastering 
was loose and occasionally a piece would become detached and 
fall upon my head. That pleased the scholars but did not 
improve my good humor. The Grange would every week hold 
a session in the room above the schoolroom, which disturbed us 
not a little. The pupils were fine and well advanced in their 
studies. I taught Latin. Greek, French. Algebra, Trigonome- 
try, Chemistry and many other branches. Among those pupils 
were many who have become prominent in educational and 
business lines. There were several from other towns. New 
Sweden sent the largest number. During the ten years stay in 
Caribou there were always some pupils from New Sweden in 
the school. 

Among the students from New Sweden was John Hedman. 
This young man showed, at once, superior ability and an untir- 
ing industry. He made great progress in his studies, and soon 
conceived the idea of fitting for college. This he did and 
entered Colby, from which college he graduated at the head of 
the class. He was elected instructor, in the following year, 
and, upon the next year, was elected professor in the same insti- 
tution, and given leave of absence for a year's study in Europe. 
Mr. Headman attended that famous school in Paris at which 
students from all the world attend. 

In a class of six hundred, Mr. H. stood second in the class. 
Mr. Hedman has been invited to Harvard but feels it a duty to 
remain at Colby. Mr. Hedman has a brilliant future awaiting 
him. I know of no young man his superior in the department 
which he so acceptably fills. I esteem myself very fortunate 
in having been his instructor and friend in his younger days. 

S. P. Hedman, lohn Learson. Washington Wiren. John 



i;o 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



Nelson and John Oliemlbaum all went to college and were young 
men of real merit and fine scholarship. Mr. Wiren is superin- 
tendent of schools in a city in the Philippine Islands. 

The history of New Sweden is an interesting one. In 
1875, under the direction of Minister Thomas, a colony of 
Swedes came to Aroostook and were allotted a township of 
land belonging to the State. They were to pay for the land 
principally by building roads. 

At first they built log houses and commenced to fell trees, 
and by patient labor at length became possessors of valuable 
farms. Then they replaced the log houses by frame ones and 
began to make the interior attractive. A person riding through 
that town today can hardly realize that ony a few years ago an 
unbroken forest stood where many elegant farm buildings now 
stand and where three church edifices invite religious worship. 
There is a large Lutheran church, an artistic commodious Bap- 
tist church and a very large Free church. These churches are 
filled Sundays with an intelligent audience. Almost every 
house has an organ or piano in it, and the town also boasts a 
brass band. I have never known a people more anxious to 
educate their children. The parents would hire a room or two 
at Caribou, bring sufficient furniture and house-keeping sup- 
plies and weekly bring out some food for the student. The 
boys would use this food and also cook potatoes, meat and cof- 
fee for themselves. Nearly all the pupils from that town were 
superior scholars. 

The school at Caribou was supported the first year in the 
manner described. At the next town meeting the school was 
adopted by the district and one thousand dollars raised to 
support a High school. Tuition was paid by the scholars from 
other districts. As the number of the scholars increased it soon 
was found necessary to provide an assistant teacher. Miss 
Godwin, a Normal graduate was secured. The next two years 
Miss Grace E. Knowlton very ably assisted me in school work. 
In the meantime C. B. Roberts and mvself bought a lot of land 



CARIBOU l7l 

where the High School buildin? now stands. Tnis lot we sold 
to the district at the same price. A house was erected costing- 
some fourteen thousand dollars. This house had the best 
ventilation of any school I ever occupied. When the law was 
enacted abolishing school districts, the town assumed the house 
and re-imbursed the district. I challenge the State to produce 
an instance where one school district ever eoualled action like 
that. And the town, too, at the time it assumed that school- 
house debt, was putting in water works, and building a twenty 
thousand dollar steel bridge. Caribou has always been an 
enterprising town. No misfortunes discourage the people, and 
no prosperity spoils them. When the last census was taken 
Caribou had about six thousand inhabitants. There are five 
churches, a Masonic Lodge, Odd Fellows Lodge, Grange and 
other societies. There are two banks and many stores finely 
arranged and fully stocked. Six or seven lawyers are flourish- 
ing on the sins of the inhabitants of the adjoining towns, and five 
doctors do miracles in the way of healing. There is but one 
undertaker and he is mostly supnorted by his farm. 

I occupied the new house six years. Miss Webber was the 
next assistant, a fine teacher. In the meantime Miss Christie 
Miller and Miss Elva Roberts were sub-assistants. Finally 
Miss Roberts became the regular assistant. She remained in 
the school as long as I did. Miss Roberts graduated from the 
High School and went to Waterville and graduated from the 
Coburn Classical School. She was a fine scholar, apt to teach, 
tactful, faithful and a lady. No one could fill the position she 
graced better than she. Miss Roberts married C. F. Ross, one 
of the prominent business men of Caribou, and is now the 
mother of three most interesting children. She is the same 
lovely woman, diffusing sunshine wherever her presence is. 
Long may she and her good man enjoy their happv life. 

That school became a part, a very large part of my life. 
There were very many most enjoyable pupils, — some verv 
talented and very few disagreeable ones. We had an advanced 
course of study and regular graduations. 



172 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



Among the earlier pupils was Herbert Hackett of Wood- 
land, — a good boy who afterwards enlisted in the army during 
the Cuban war and died in the service. Peace to his ashes. 

W. S. Webb was one of the first pupils. He afterwards 
graduated at Orono and taught for some years at Houlton, and 
was later superintendent of schools at Caribou. Roy Bartlett, 
A. J. Taylor, Allie Hardison, Newman Doyle, John S. Spauld- 
ing, and W. S. Webb were students of mine at Presque Isle 
and the school consequently did not seem entirely like a strange 
one. It was through their influence and their parents that I 
received a "call" to Caribou. It has been my singular fortune 
to teach but two or three schools for which I applied. All the 
rest have applied to me. I have sought for positions, not many, 
which I have not obtained, but to the schools where I have 
taught I have been called. 

W T hen I first thought of teaching I suggested to another 
boy a little older than I that we start out together to get a school. 
So Frank Parsons and I started forth on a mission, that has not 
yet terminated. We drove up to the town of Parkman and 
interviewed each agent in regular order. Frank, as he was 
older, had the first bid ; his inexperience barred him out. It was 
my turn next. I met my agent in the road. He was a large, 
fat man and stuttered spasmodically. When I told him my age 
he refused to engage my services, and raising himself upon tip- 
toe and with mouth twisted into inconceivable shapes, with eyes 
wildly rolling, with right hand frantically waving and left foot 
digging holes in the roadbed, he stuttered "n-n-nooo, the-th-they 
are ug-ug-lv as h-h-h — 11. I was afterward very glad that I 
did not attempt that school. Some big girls attacked the teacher 
the next term and drove him from the house minus hat and 
coat. One never knows how many evils they narrowly escape. 
A telegram took me to Houlton and the schools at Foxcroft and 
Monson Academy were voluntarily offered me. 

The first graduates from Caribou High School were New- 
man Doyle and W. E. Sincock, of whom I spoke in the Presque 



CARIBOU 



i/3 



Isle article. That was in 1887. The next year Roy F. Bart- 
lett, A. H. Hardison and W. S. Webb graduated. Mr. Har- 
dison is now a civil engineer in California. 

The next class consisted of thirteen, two of whom now 
sleep in the beautiful evergreen cemetery at Caribou, — sweet 
Gertie Briggs and noble Vernon Hall. Miss Garden is teach- 
ing the Grammar School at Caribou very successfully, and 
Alice Shaw is also a well-known teacher. The rest of the class 
drew tickets in the matrimonial lottery, and were generally 
fortunate I should judge. 

Among the earlier pupils who did not graduate was John S. 
Spaulding. John was a free-hearted, companionable boy, the 
soul of the social life in town. Always ready to help and sup- 
port everything that made the town better. His premature 
death caused many tears to flow among all classes that knew 
him. 

Thomas C. Tooker was another boy who early showed super- 
ior ability in scholarship. He fitted for college, and graduated 
with honor. Mr. Tooker won much praise also by his musical 
abilitv. He is now a well-known teacher in southern Maine. 

The Lafferty boys were good boys and studied well. Russ 
attended strictly to business, and showed great good taste in 
the selection of a wife later on. The Gammon girls were good 
scholars and fine singers. Sampson was studious and good in 
figures, and married pretty Gertie Campbell, a favorite pupil 
of mine. 

Eva Ross was always very nice, and smart, and Idella 
Holmes never lost her good humor. The Briggs girls and boys 
will never be forgotten by the teacher of that day. Josie was 
sparkling and Grace Shaw would never get tired. Sweet Myr- 
tie Small won her way to my heart the first hour ; and Myrtie 
Todd was near perfection. 

W. H. Fisher was a very diligent pupil and rapidly 
advanced. After leaving school he read law and commenced 
to practice at Augusta. Mr. Fisher has been very successful in 
the profession of law, and is now in Europe on a pleasure trip. 



174 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

One day there appeared in school a bright eyed girl about 
15 years old, who attracted my attention at once by the accurate 
manner in which she recited. She told me her name was Chris- 
tine Miller. She attended school some four years, fitted for 
college and was a student at Colby two years. She was what I 
call an intuitive scholar. Her lessons seemed to evolve from 
her mind. She is at present one of the teachers in the Caribou 
High school, and deserves and receives great credit for her 
work. 

I have alluded to Roy F. Bartlett. That young man 
attracted my attention at Presque Isle at once, and my interest in 
him increased the more I knew him. I saw much of him at 
Caribou and learned to love him. His whole soul was the ideal 
that young men might follow. His intellectual faculties were 
of a very high order. His reasoning powers were extraordi- 
nary. A keener sense of honor I never knew in any boy. When 
life seemed so glorious, when prospects so brilliant, when 
friends so hopeful — at that hour he faded from life, and left so 
many hearts sad, and caused a whole community to weep. 
Rare, lovable, brilliant Roy F. Bartlett, he will never lack a 
mourner while this hand can wield a pen or my heart beat. 

The Hardison girls were always busy at something good, 
and have been very successful in their vocations in life. John 
Gordon, Richard Gardner, A. W. Spaulding were all good boys 
and are today prominent in business affairs and many others 
I might recall. Not one is forgotton. Louis Stearns was a 
fine looking boy and bright. He graduated at Colby and is now 
reading law. John and Sarah Roberts, Dana Therrieult went to 
college. They were all fine scholars. Mr. Spaulding has been 
on the Governor's staff. Mr. Therrieult is a promising lawyer. 
John Nelson is a good lawyer and first-class fellow every way. 
John Roberts and Louis Stearns I am sure will do honor to 
Caribou High in a successful professional career. 

So many more I could mention with pleasure did space 
permit. 



CARIBOU 175 

Madge Goud was a fine Latin scholar. She attended a 
Normal and Commercial School after graduating from Caribou 
and has had fine positions in the bank and business houses. 

I remember, with pleasure, the sweet voice voice and cheery 
smile of Grace Stratton. Grace, somehow, seemed to me as my 
own daughter. She is still studying and learning, and always 
will be at something good and useful. 

Hope Gardner, always bright and sparkling; Hannah, with 
her pretty eyes ; Emma, the irrepressible ; Ray, on whose brow 
was written success; Roy, the brilliant: Ethel, the thoughtful; 
all those, and many more, in memory's glass appear in all the 
freshness of the old days. 

Poetic Bessie, and flirtatious Nellie, I would not forget. 
Nor the Powers boys, who used to personate each other to avoid 
declaiming. These boys had great dramatic ability. 

The Gould boys were very popular and May Hitchings was 
smart. 

The Thomas girls were very bright and I remember them 
with great pleasure. 

During the years I taught at Caribou, three of the pupils 
who had become very dear to me, left me for other scenes and 
brighter skies. Brilliant, thoughtful, lovable Deasey Goud 
sickened and died just when she was showing a wonderful intel- 
lect, a heart full of love and purity, and grand aspirations. I 
loved that young girl as my own, and shall never cease to do so. 
Gertie Irving, so sweet, so lady-like, so faithful in every 
duty ; I followed the hearse with the deepest emotion, that bore 
her to her last resting place. I loved that little girl. 

Ellen Anderson, a favorie with all, and beloved by the 
teacher, passed from us at the very beginning of a life of great 
promise. 

"All my fears are laid aside" 

"If I but remember only," 

"Such as these have lived and died." 



176 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

They were all so nice, and smart. It was a lovable lot of 
pupils. I also found many kind friends in Caribou. Many 
families showed my family and myself great kindness. The 
Getchells, the Bartletts, the Briggses, the Hardisons, and many 
others. Caribou is a very enterprising town, and, in the com- 
ing future will become a large commercial center of trade and 
manufactories. 

Dr. Thomas and family, during my stay at Caribou, and 
since, have showed me great kindness and those favors will 
never be forgotten. The young ladies and Charles were always 
very kind to me. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

M ON SON ACADEMY. 

In 1895, I returned to Monson and taught ten years. Many 
of the pupils were the children of the old scholars. The school 
was much smaller than when I taught there before, for one 
especial reason. In the old days there were no High Schools, 
so I had pupils from several towns. Now there are High 
Schools in many towns, which fact must lessen the attendance 
at the Academies. I enjoyed the school, however, and had 
under my care some very bright scholars. Seven pupils entered 
Colby during the ten years, and two entered Medical Colleges. 
Mr. Larson graduated from the Medical School at Albany, 
and Mr. Sampson is at Brunswick. Roth of these young men 
will, I am sure, make a success of life. They have the ability, 
and, what is more important, a desire to make something of 
themselves. 

Miss Bessie Jones was the only young lady who went to 
college. Miss Jones is a fine scholar and a lovable young lady. 
The boys now in college are all young men of talent, and will 
doubtless graduate with honor. 

My first assistant was Miss Agnes Powers. She had every 
quality requisite for a good teacher. Miss Powers resigned at 
the close of two years and attended a missionary school in 
Chicago. Later she married Rev. Mr. Bishop and is now happy 
in her work as a pastor's wife in Hodgdon. Miss Ethel W. 
Knowlton was assistant for a year. Her teaching was perfect- 
ly satisfactory. Miss Flora Gilbert was my last assistant. 



178 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

During the twenty years I was teaching in Aroostook, 
Monson Academy sent two students to Bates College, neither of 
whom graduated. In the seven years I taught that Institution, 
eight entered Colby and Bowdoin. 

I have always believed in a college education, provided cer- 
tain things were true. An indispensable condition is a sufficient 
mental capacity. I would advise no student to enter college 
who has not a mental capacity to readily fit for college, and who 
does not exhibit to the teacher that capacity. 

Secondly, no student should go who is not willing to sacri- 
fice something to attain a college education. He must be will- 
ing, oftimes, to sacrifice the gratifications of many desires call- 
ing for money. He must be willing to use time he would like 
to devote to pleasure and friends. That one idea, — a college 
education, — should be the absorbing, all-controlling purpose of 
life. Of course, no one will understand that I would put that 
purpose above any moral duty. As I see it, the first great duty 
of every young person is to start on a Christian life. This 
course entered upon, will naturally enlarge the desire for use- 
fulness, naturally suggesting a college course as the best means 
to prepare for that end. 

During the ten years, we had two debates with other 
schools. The first debate was with Guilford High School. 

The speakers on our side were John Humphrey, Harry 
Sampson, and Miss Stella Wheeler. These young people were 
well fitted for the position. Mr. Humphrey was a fine scholar 
and pleasant speaker. The logic of his argument was keen and 
incisive. Mr. Humphrey entered college a year later, and made 
a good record there until circumstances compelled him to with- 
draw. 

Mr. Sampson is a very energetic young man of high ability. 
He is bound to succeed. He was a member of Bowdoin College 
two years, and is now on the last year's course in the Medical 
School. 



MONSON ACADEMY 179 

Miss Wheeler is a very talented young lady, and a fine 
speaker. 

On the part of Guilford, Hugh Montgomery, Frank Loring 
and Miss E. Rebecca Ellis were the speakers. I should cer- 
tainly class these young people as far above the average in abil- 
ity. Mr. Montgomery is, at present, reading law with J. S. 
Williams, at Guilford. 

Mr. Loring, after graduating at Guilford, went to Cali- 
fornia. When he returned, he entered the University of Maine 
and pursued a course in that institution. He is at present in 
Parknian. 

Miss Ellis showed in that debate that a brilliant future 
awaited her. I was particularly pleased with the originality of 
thought displayed, and the modest, lady-like appearance of 
Miss Ellis on the platform. Miss Ellis graduated from the 
High School and entered W'ellesley College, in 1900. She held 
so high rank and showed such ability that she was elected 
instructor of the Sciences of Astronomy and Physics in that 
well-known institution and will be raised to a full professorship 
the coming year. 

The victory was with us in the debate, but I should say that 
the Guilford pupils did not have a fair chance. The principal 
of that school resigned just before the debate, and the new 
principal, Mr. Snow, did not have proper time to attend to the 
matter. 

The second debate was with Foxcroft Academy. Harrv 
Sampson, John Humphrey, and Miss Lillie Piper were the 
debaters from Monson. Miss Piper won great praise, deserved- 
ly, on that occasion. She is a very intellectual young ladv and a 
well-known teacher. Of the other two I have already spoken. 

Lester B. Howard, H. W. Cass, and Robert E. Hall were 
the speakers for Foxcroft Academy. These young men showed 
themselves then and since, as superior in mental caliber and 
culture. 



!8o THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Mr. Howard is taking a course of instruction at the Uni- 
versity of Maine. Mr. Cass, after spending two years at 
Bowdoin College, entered a law school at Boston. Mr. Hall 
entered Bowdoin and has always occupied a prominent position 
there. His executive ability has been recognized all through 
the course. He is a member of the Z. U. Fraternity ; was Vice 
President of N. E. Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association ; Asso- 
ciate Manager of 'Varsity Track Team ; and many other posi- 
tions he has held. All that know Mr. Hall predict for him a 
very successful career. 

The contest was very close but the judges awarded us the 
victory, though I imagine some of the Foxcroft people did not 
coincide with the judges. 

Such things are now out of date. Football has supplanted 
all such things. The intellectual has had its day ; now muscle 
is at a premium. Perhaps the day will come when each will 
receive its due attention. 

I should not be doing justice to my own feelings to close 
my reminiscences of my last sojourn in Monson without men- 
tioning the Banigan family. Mr. Banigan is a New York law- 
yer of eminent ability. Overwork broke down his health some- 
what and he came to Monson to rusticate. We became ac- 
quainted by a magic wand, — the fishing rod. I found him a 
most valuable acquaintance. His knowledge of the world was 
very extensive, his reading universal and his good nature was 
never ruffled. I never met a more perfect gentleman anywhere, 
and never enjoyed a fishing companion more. If I ever feel 
inclined to be critical in the choice of a companion it is in select- 
ing a man to go fishing with. I could eat with, work with, 
sleep with a man that I would utterly refuse to fish with. One 
disagreeable fellow in a crowd of fishermen will spoil the whole 
day's sport. I enjoyed also the pleasant society and hospitality 
of Mrs. Banigan. Willie and Lou Banigan I most heartily 
enjoyed. I hope I shall see them again. 



MONSON ACADEMY 181 

It has been my good fortune to have known some very 
pleasant fishermen. Clergymen, on the whole, are good men 
to go fishing with. The most of those with whom I have fished 
have been good fellows, and ready to do their part of the work. 
I suppose I was wicked when once I rebuked a clergyman for 
delay caused by a "season of prayer" after the boat was all ready. 
When I asked him why he prayed just then, he said he was 
praying that he might catch some fish. I thought he might 
have included me or taken some other opportunity to pray. 

I went out, one day. with a lot of strange clergymen, on 
the lake, and among the number was a very sanctimonious min- 
ister who could not bait his own hook. There was also aboard 
the boat a professional fisherman. Just for fun, I addressed 
him as "Brother G." The minister thought he belonged to the 
"Cloth" and called him "Brother G." Brother T. lost his bait 
and wanted G. to put on another so he presented G. with hook 
and chub and said, "Brother G., will you adjust this chub to 
my hook?" Just then G. hooked a trout and lost him and, 

forgetting his surroundings, ejaculated very fervently : "D 

that trout !" I happened to be looking at Brother T. The 
dazed look that overspread his face was followed by one of 
astonishment and when the full import of that word came to 
him, the flash of indignation that came from his eyes fairly maue 
the water sparkle. There he stood ; chub in one hand, hook in 
the other, with both arms extended, for a full minute ; then his 
spine assumed a very perpendicular direction and, swallowing 
a big lump in his throat, he said in a hard, dry tone: "Mr. G. 
will you hook this chub for me?" No more "Brother" for G. 
that day. 

E. R. Haynes, of Monson, is the most enthusiastic fisher- 
man I ever met with, and a very companionable man for a fish- 
ing trip. I think Mr. H. has a wheel-barrow load of fishing 
tackle. 

The recent graduates from the school at Monson were all 
young people of good ability and are making a mark in the 



l% 2 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

world. Miss Steward, Miss Jackson, Miss Sears and Miss John- 
son are well known teachers. Of Miss Piper and Miss Wheeler, 
I have spoken in another place. Miss Grover taught for a time 
and entered a business college. Miss Phillips taught a year and 
entered a business college and is now in a printing office. Miss 
Phillips will be a success anywhere. Miss Wilkins is at Bangor 
in the training school and teaching. Miss Wilkins is a very 
fine teacher in the primary schools. 

The Jones boys, Oscar Peterson, William Sherburne and 
Harvey Gilbert entered college. Ormon Steward was fitted 
for college but did not go. He is a young man of superior 
ability and an excellent teacher. 

There were many bright scholars in the senior class when 
my connection with the school closed. One of the most promis- 
ing scholars I ever taught is Harry Riddle of that class. He will 
enter college and some of the young ladies will go to Normal 
school. 

Frank Phillips of Shirley is a fine mathematician and a 
first-class young man. I hope he will continue his course of 
study at some higher institution. I am sure he would be a suc- 
cess as an engineer. I received many kind favors from his 
family and himself, while teaching at Shirley. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

SHIRLEY. BILL NYE. 

One summer I desired to test some of the theories upon 
which were founded some of the new methods of teaching, 
so I engaged to teach a district school in the town of Shirley. 
Shirley is a small town, bounded on the east by Douty Hill, 
west by Squaw Mountain, north by Moosehead lake, and south 
by the illimitable Universe. The town has some very nice people 
in it, and I enjoyed the school very much. I drove up nine 
miles each morning, and back that night. 

Attending that school was a beautiful girl fourteen years 
of age. She was a sweet and modest, lovable girl and I became 
very well acquainted with her. as she rode a mile a day to school 
with me. I taught her the names of the rocks and plants by 
the roadside and discussed books and lots of things. A year 
later, that lovely Pirl, her father and mother, were murdered 
by the most brutal assassin the State of Maine ever knew. 

Sweet Carrie Allen ! I can see her today, in all her modest 
loveliness, as she rode by my side and talked about the future, 
planning to get a good education and become a factor for good 
in the world. No crime has ever seemed so horrible to me as 
that one. All such things take a shading from our relation to 
the victim. 

At Shirley Mills there is a house somewhat famous. It 
was the birthplace of Bill Nye. The house stands on the west 
side of the Main street and is what is called a story and a half 
house. It is in a good state of repair. Around the house some 
old-fashioned flowers grow, giving the premises a cozy and 



1 84 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

pleasant appearance. In that house, in the west chamber, was 
born William Nye. Mr. Nye was, for some years, recognized 
as an original humorist. As long as Bill Nye wrote occasion- 
ally, his writings were very readable and oft-times first-class — 
but when he fell into the mistake that many others have made 
and began to write by the yard, he became dull and uninterest- 
ing. 

But the man had real genius and many of his sayings and 
pieces will survive the wreck of time. Perhaps no one of our 
humorists has been more maligned than Bill Nye. For years 
the report has been current that his early death was the result 
of habits of intoxication. Recent investigation has proved con- 
clusively that he was not an inebriate, that he used liquors spar- 
ingly. That in his ideal home in North Carolina, he was a mod- 
el husband and father. 

References are sometimes made to his last appearance on 
the stage at Patterson, when it was claimed he was intoxicated. 
A friend of his has recently publicly declared that he was per- 
fectly sober that night. The cause of his death was a shock 
brought on by overwork. 

Maine has produced many writers, wittv and humorous. 
Some of these will live in history; others will be unknown to 
another generation. Seba Smith wrote some very bright things ; 
but only a few people remember him today. Seba Smith wrote 
some very sarcastic witticisms which showed real genius. 

No one has ever written an adequate definition of wit, or 
humor. S. S. Cox tried to do so, some years ago, in a maga- 
zine article ; but even he must have recognized his failure to 
make the matter clear. I shall only gossip a little about the mat- 
ter, in a desultory way. 

Wit is purely a mental affair. It consists in the combina- 
tion of thought in such a way as to produce surprise. The com- 
bination is always unexpected. The commonplace attracts no 
notice. It is the extraordinary that causes surprise. One may 
walk through a forest for an hour without noticing any especial 



SHIRLEY. BILL NYE 185 

tree, but a particularly crooked one, a remarkably tall one, in 
fact, any one differing from the mass, attracts the attention. 
Any unusual combination of trees of different kinds always re- 
ceives notice. So, in mental matters, the unusual, the incongruous, 
the exceptional, the strange, effects the mind in a peculiar way. 

The human mind is so constituted that such combination 
induces a pleasurable sensation, causing a visible play of the 
muscles of the face, and the audible exhibition of laughter. No 
one can tell why we laugh, except that we are made so. It 
seems a little strange that we do laugh sometimes. For in- 
stance, let a dignified gentleman come into an audience of 
refined and educated ladies and gentlemen and accidentally 
sit clown upon his silk hat; every one will smile, but why? It 
was simply unexpected. 

We are not universally a witty people. No nation has so 
high sense of humor as our own people, — and no one has ever 
produced more enjoyable humorists ; but most of those cannot 
be called men of wit. 

Artemus Ward was an admirable humorist, but no wit. 
Mark Twain combines in himself the triune qualities of humor- 
ist, satirist, and wit. I am inclined to think that the brightest 
specimens of American wit are found among what is some- 
times called "the Common People." Wit must be spontaneous. 
It must come as an electric flash, called forth by a peculiar per- 
ception of the condition of things. 

Our forefathers, back in Revolutionary days, must have 
possessed the quality to quite an eminent degree, according 
to tradition. When the Council in Connecticut passed an edict 
that a man should not kiss his own wife on Sunday, a young 
Benedict asked: "Why! Whose wife then shall I kiss?" 
Benjamin Franklin rather wittily obtained a grant from the 
Ouaker Assembly of Pennsylvania for two thousand pounds 
of wheat, and other grains. He purchased one pound of wheat, 
and 1999 pounds of powder. Powder has grains, he explained 
later. 



1 86 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

There have come down to us from those days but few 
printed specimens of wit, but reasoning from analogy, we should 
say that real wit was more abundant in those days than at the 
present time. The camp, the wood, and the stern realities of 
a strenuous life are conducive to the development of wit. — 
Ease, wealth, a happy condition of things, is conducive to hu- 
mor. 

Matthew Byles was known in Boston as a witty man in 
Revolutionary days. He was, at one time, anxious to marry a 
beautiful woman ; but she married Josiah Quincy. When he 
next met her he remarked, "Well, it seems you preferred Quinsy 
to Byles." (Boils) There is a bit of a pun in the remark, I 
admit, but right here I have a kindly word to say about the pun. 
I know, of late, the pun has been somewhat under ban, but it 
is coming back into favor again, and properly too. 

Some of the brightest scintillations of wit I have ever heard 
or read have been clothed in the garments of the pun. — To illus- 
trate — when the poet said that, in tracing out the family line, 
"Many an aristocratic family found it waxed at the other end," 
and a very deaf old lady bought a trumpet, and, "The very next 
day heard from her husband at Botany Bay." There are the 
garments of the pun, but there is wit, nevertheless. 

Just after the Revolution two eminent gentlemen were walk- 
ing by Old South Church, which, at one time, was used as a 
hospital. One of these men was a Unitarian clergyman. He 
had formerly been an orthodox. The other gentleman re- 
marked, as they passed by; "I was vaccinated in that church." 
The other said : "I was baptized there." "Yes," the first re- 
plied, "and it took in neither case." 

The only production of Revolutionary days I have ever 
read which claimed to be witty was written by the author of 
"The Battle of the Keags," Francis Hopkinson. There are 
flashes of wit in spots, at considerable intervals. 

In the tragic days preceding the Civil War, when the 
prophetic soul could almost hear the mutterings of the contend- 



SHIRLEY. BILL NYE 187 

ing forces that later shook our national fabric to its foundations, 
James Russel Lowell wrote pages of satire, from which flash 
occasionally pure wit. "The Courtin" is full of wit. 

"Zekle's heart went pit-a-pat" 
"And hern went pity Zekle." 

Our own John Neal wrote a few very witty things. Bob 
Burdette is the prince of good fellows and humorists, but he 
is occasionally witty. There is a man in New York, a Mr. 
Landon (Eli Perkins) who thinks himself a wit, but I never 
read him or hear him without thinking of a little verse I learned 
when I was a child — 

"Says Bill : "I really think I'll set up for a wit." 

"Says Jim : "The best thing you can do is down again to sit." 

Dr. Holmes wrote some very witty poetry, and said many 
witty things in his lectures. John G. Saxe, of Vermont, was 

witty man, though mostly in the way of puns. When he said 
the fisherman, being a landsman, "couldn't keep the log" and 
so fell into the water, he surprises us, and hence was witty. 

During the Civil War, Patroleum V. Nasby wrote some 
very local witty things. Josh Billings was witty. Mark Twain 
has said many very witty sayings. When he found his friend in 
Palestine, one hot day in July, watching a mud turtle very care- 
fully for an hour, and discovered that he was waiting to hear 
him sing, relying upon the text of Scripture which says: "The 
voice of the turtle shall be heard in the land," we laugh, for we 
know that the turtle dove is meant. When Mark wept over 
the tomb of Adam because he was a relative ; "distant to be sure, 
but none the less a relative," he was witty. 

There have been brighter exhibitions of wit in the bar, the 
pulpit and in Congress, than in any professedly witty publications. 

1 heard a clergyman, at a camp-meeting at Charlestown, pray 
for a young man who had made himself obnoxious ; and he 
closed his prayer thus: "Now, Lord, we pray that thou wilt, 
in the mightiness of thy power, take that young man and make 



1 88 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

his heart as free from sin as his head is from sense !" I think 
he prayed for complete holiness. 

That unmarried female preacher who asked the bachelor 
bishop if St. Paul's exhortation : "Let the bishop be the husband 
of one wife," wasn't mandatory, expressed a sort of heartfelt 
wit. 

John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, was one of the wittiest 
men ever in Congress. It was said that he was the only man 
that the duelist, Foote of Mississippi, was afraid of. It was his 
wit, and not his pistol, that awed him. When Hale was told, 
one day, by Foote, that a donkey passing in the street, was one 
of his constituents, he replied : "O, yes, going down South to 
teach school." Tom Carwin of Ohio, was a very witty man. 
S. S. Cox of New York, was a buffoon generally, but occasion- 
ally a wit. Tom Reed said a very witty but rather cruel thing 
when he made that famous reply to a brother member. The 
member said : "I had rather be right than be President." 
Reed said : "You will never be either." 

Wit is almost naturally cruel, but yet some of the brightest 
flashes exhibit the kindliest heart. It seems unfortunate, at 
first glance, that the great mass of witty sayings are lost. They 
are never written, they flash forth in unexpected places, and at 
all times, with no scribe to commemorate. Wit can never be 
forced, can never be cultivated, except in kind. Cultivation 
refines wit, but does not produce it. Wit has made a few men 
famous, and has written the early epitaph of many an aspiring 
politician. 

Had James G. Blaine never called Conklin "a strutting 
turkey-cock," he would have been president of the United States. 
The New York senator's reply was equally fatal, when asked 
to speak for Blaine. He said he had gone out of criminal prac- 
tice. He could never be president after that speech. Zack 
Chandler threw away his last chance for the Presidency when 
he said that the Republican party, in stealing the Presidency 
for Hayes, was only guilty of "petit larceny." And many other 



SHIRLEY. BILL NYE 189 

witty, but fatal, sayings might be quoted which h->ve had an 
undying influence upon private and public life. This has been 
true in all nations and at all times. The Archbishop who 
preached the Coronation Sermon before Queen Elizabeth pre- 
destinated his fate, when he took for his text: "A live dog is 
better than a dead lion." 

I have treated this subject, perhaps, at too great length; 
but have been impelled to by a native keen sense of appreciation 
of wit and humor. I never boasted of possessing either, per- 
sonally, but do enjoy a good thing in that line, coming from 
others. 

Perhaps I might have had a bit of something of that sort 
about me, had not my budding genius in that direction been 
cruelly frozen in the May Day of its existence. I never aimed 
to be witty or funny but, somehow, I always fired too high or 
two low, and failed to bring down the bird and sometimes 
wounded the game-keeper. 

I tried, two or three times, to say pretty things to the ladies, 
but always failed and had to give it up. When my readers 
have perused the following lines. I am sure they will say it was 
the best to resign. One day, while playing Logomachy, I select- 
ed the letters that formed the word ''Columbia" and neglected 
to put in the letter "u," and gave them to Miss P., a maiden 
lady whom Dr. Holmes would not have called a "spring chicken." 
After a time, she said : "Why ! it is Columbia, the gem of the 
ocean, but the "u" is not in it! I replied: "My dear Miss P., 
Columbia would not be the gem of the ocean without you ("u") 
in it." That lady did not speak to me for a month. 

On another occasion a nice looking assistant of mine by 
the name of Miss Fields came to school dressed completely in 
green and when I suggested that she reminded me of a line from 
Dr. Watt's Hymn Book, — "Sweet Fields, arrayed in living 
green," I received a box on the ear which thoroughly cured me 
of that sort of thing. 



190 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



I never attempted to be a punster but once. One day I 
was cutting down a dogwood tree when a man came along and 
said "Woodsman, spare that tree!" I replied: — "Touch not a 
single bow-wow." It took him five minutes to see the point. 
I have ever since confined myself to categorical statements of 
facts. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

FUNNY PEOPLE. 

Observation and personal experience teaches that all classes 
of people are inclined to be funny sometimes and at other times 
to blunder. They are funny when they do peculiar things as 
when a man with a chubby face wears side whiskers or when 
a woman of fifty dresses like a girl of sixteen or when a young 
man of twenty talks too much or when a young lady is sure 
that fate and not her personality has prevented a good match. 

People blunder when through thoughtlessness or excite- 
ment they do or say what they did not intend to, or when they 
misconceived the conditions. That office-seeker who said after 
his nomination, "For this nomination I congratulate you," 
simply blundered. The Irishman that thought his ox did not 
girth six feet because he could not get a six foot chain around 
him, blundered from a lack of knowledge. Even clergymen 
sometimes blunder. 

A student from Andover was in Concord last year and was 
asked to speak to the convicts. He did so, and most earnestly 
urged them to believe in infant baptism. A candidate once 
came to the coast of Maine to preach where three-fourths of the 
audience were fishermen. His subject was "Humility." In the 
course of his remarks he said : "Be humble. Your Master 
deigned to associate with fishermen, the most degraded, igno- 
rant and wicked people on the face of the earth." 

I knew a clergyman who, in a fit of absent-mindedness, sug- 
gested that the choir sing the fortieth hymn to close a revival 
meeting. The opening line of that funeral hymn read : "Sister, 



192 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

thou wert mild and lovely." The chorister thought he was 
thinking of his old girl. 

An amusing scene once occurred in a church in the town 
where I was teaching. The clergyman knew nothing of music 
but he could sing just one hymn, — Ariel. One Sunday he 
noticed that some of the choir was absent, so to help them out, 
he thought he would have them sing this, his only tune. He 
read a long-meter hymn and, looking across the church to the 
choir in the gallery at the farther end of the house, he said : 
"Sing Ariel" as he pronounced it. The chorister did not 
understand him and asked the soprano what he said. She 
replied : "He said, 'Sing or I will.' " That chorister was wroth. 
He arose to his feet, which were two yards from the top of his 
bald head, and, with indignation written in every line of his face 
and fire flashing from his eyes, replied : "Sing yourself then !" 
J ust imagine the effect upon the minister and the audience ! 

There is something peculiar about a chorister. The man 
is usually a distinct character. His whole soul is so absorbed in 
rhythm and harmony and the execution of sound, that he often- 
times becomes oblivious to other things. I once spoke in the 
Methodist church at Houlton. The chorister was allowed to 
select his tunes and hymns. I glanced over a list he gave me 
and looked up the hymns in the book. The hymn he had 
selected to sing just before the sermon commenced thus: 

"We lay our bodies down to rest," 
"Lord, guard us while we sleep." 

I thought it was bad enough to have the people sleep dur- 
ing my speaking, without asking the Lord's blessing upon it, 
and so changed the hymn. 

The first chorister I can remember was an oldish man, and 
very spare and tall. There was no organ in the church. When 
the time came to sing, he would arise, take his tuning fork from 
his left-hand vest pocket, give each lip of his mouth an outward 
curl, give the fork a sharp nip with his teeth, which were very 



FUNNY PEOPLE 



!93 



long, then, with a sort of parabolic curve through the air, he 
would place the fork to his ear, close his eyes, and hum "Dome" 
with a nasal twang. The whole choir would "take the key" 
and "sound" and sing the hymn. 

In the old days the choir always sang the whole hymn 
through. I once heard the choir sing one of those old hymns 
in this way. The clergyman told the choir to omit the second 
stanza; so they sang the first and third without an interlude, 
and the audience was somewhat amused by the sequence of 
thought. The last line of the first stanza read "Shall I among 
them (the ransomed) stand?" The first line of the third 
stanza read : "Forbid it, Lord, that this should be." 

I remember being once at a funeral of a citizen not particu- 
larly noted for his morals when the amateur chorister started 
his improvised choir off with "We all, O Lord, have gone 
astray." 

We have all heard of the clergyman who married a couple 
in church and then gave out the hymn commencing "Mistaken 
souls who dream of bliss." 

When a lady told me that they had the church walls painted 
a dull yellow because the pastor's moustache was of that shade, 
I thought it savored of Oscar Wilde. 

I heard an old lady once say, on returning from her hus- 
band's funeral, "Everything went off tip-top." The phrase- 
ology was a little unfortunate. 

If I had recorded all the blunders my students made they 
would have filled a volume. Many of these were very funny, 
especially when the personality of the boy or girl was in evi- 
dence. That small boy with molasses and bread crumbs plas- 
tered over half his face, with hair uncombed and hands fresh 
from the embrace of mother earth, with a squint in one eye 
and a voice pitched on high C, had just the toute ensemble to 
spell "hupping koff" in that artistic way. I give a few of these 
blunders without the settings. 

13 



194 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



A boy in Atkinson astonished me by reading "Queen Mary 
often spent an hour in hemming pocket jacknives." A girl 
actually read, in my hearing, that oft-repeated line : "There was 
a great clam." This method of reading the Bible has led to 
some strange theology. 

One day a young man was reciting in Physics and was giv- 
ing the rule for computing the pressure on the bottom of a 
vessel ; and rendered it thus : "To compute the pressure on the 
bottom of a ship multiply the area of the base by the height 
of the liquid, and this result by sixty-two and a half pounds." 
I suggested there was some mistake, but he said the book said 
so, that "Ship" was another name for "vessel." 

A young lady, reciting the history of the Civil War, de- 
clared that they bombarded the fort with "cranberries and 
grapes ;" a very mild substitute for cannister and grapeshot. 
The same girl said the ''corpse" of Hooker was swept from the 
field. Being asked to explain, she said she supposed his body 
was carried off in an ambulance. A little further on she 
recited "Hooker re-formed his army." "Ah," I said, "how was 
that?" "I don't know," she replied, "unless he came to life." 

A boy one day, reading the line 

"Up, up, Maria, 

"The lark is in the sky." 

rendered it thus : "Double up Maria, The lark is in the 
sky." Another boy read "One by one they dropt down dead 
and died." A great, awkward boy, reading a line from "The 
Better Land," — "Is it far away, in some region old?" gave 
it this way, "Is it far away in some ragged hole?" He got 
the metre all right but did some violence to the sentiment. Still 
another boy informed the audience that "Gradgrind iced his 
coffee in summer." Dickens wrote it "his office." The same 
boy gave this line, with fervid eloquence : "And his bird stood 
beside him and briny tears wept." "Bride" would have been 
more natural. 



FUNNY PEOPLE 195 

SOCIAL CHEMISTRY. 

Address to the Students and Friends of Ricker Classical 

Institute. 

Scientific men tell us that this great world of ours, with all 
its wonderful variety of forms and productions, is made up by 
the multifarious combining and commingling of sixty-four dis- 
tinct elements. These elements are rarely found alone but 
almost always either mechanically or chemically combined, 
sometimes with one but oftener with many others. Five or 
more of these elements are gases ; one a liquid metal, and eight 
or ten metals, and the rest metaloids. Among the metals are 
a few called royal metals on account of their scarcity, purity, 
and incorruptibility. Nothing corrupts or tarnishes them. 
Such are gold, silver and platinum. 

But, although there are sixty-four elements in all, yet it 
is true that the great mass of the earth and the living things 
upon it are composed of only four distinct elements : Oxygen, 
Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen. These are all gaseous : so 
you see gas is the predominant feature in this peculiar world of 
ours. 

Now, as the physical world is composed of chemical ele- 
ments, and governed by fixed chemical laws, so the social world, 
in which human souls are the elements, were both created by 
the same Almighty hand, hence there must be a similaritv in 
the process of development, and one must be closely allied to 
the other. Then let us take the social world into our mental 
laboratory and perform a few experiments and form some de- 
ductions. 

In physical Chemistry all we can do is to take combina- 
tions as we find them in nature, resolve them into the parts 
that compose them, and, from what we learn by this process, 
learn how to make new combinations.. So, in the social world, 
we take society as we find it and endeavor to discover the ele- 
ments or influences that produced the existing conditions. 



I9 6 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Society is made up of combinations. There are many ex- 
hibitions of curious forms, ceremonies, and characters, but 
very little that is new. Almost every peculiar character on 
earth today is a reproduction of some actor in the past. 

There are Adams and Eves in this twentieth Century who 
will never see Paradise again, men are trying to climb up to 
Heaven now as they did on Shinar's plain by stairways of their 
own constructing, with a resulting jargon of doctrine not un- 
like the Babel attempts of old. Lot's wife is looking over her 
shoulder tonight somewhere, while regretfully leaving scenes 
not conducive to her best being ; Sampsons without number, 
with shorn locks, are doing their best work by dying. There 
are daughters of Jephtha everywhere, sacrificing heart and soul 
that some dear one may live ; Jezebels still curse the earth. 

Ruth and Naomi are still traveling, hand in hand, to 
find a Boaz ; Mary still weeps, and Martha works ; Judas is 
forever jingling his forty pieces of silver; and impetuous 
Peters will sometimes swear. Alexander reappeared in Napo- 
leon Bonaparte and Caesar ; and so on through history. All 
these are not the exact reproduction of the past, but as near as 
the time will admit. 

As every rock of the field is the- result of chemical com- 
bination, so men and women are what they are because of the 
spiritual chemistry of their make-up. 

In the chemical world there is one great universal agency 
forever at work. Its power was mighty, even in the infancy 
of the earth. Oxygen, the grand central element around which 
all others center. It has the greatest affinity of all elements. 
It builds up and tears down, gives life and takes it ; is never 
at rest and never found alone. 

So there are oxygen men and women in society. They 
give life to everything around them. Every new enterprise, 
every bold endeavor, every combination of social or commercial 
forces, is the result of the energizing force of oxygen men. 
Those men are indispensable, but they must never act alone. They 



FUNNY PEOPLE 



197 



are too nervous, too headstrong, too much given to "frenzied 
finance." They would build a house with such impetuosity 
that friction itself would set the building on fire. Oxygen men 
are great joiners. They want to belong to every society and 
association, and this is all right. 

They are not safe alone, but in combination arc most ex- 
cellent. 

Nitrogen is a mysterious component of the natural world. 
It is past finding out. It constitutes four-fifths of the air we 
breathe yet it does nothing for us in this operation of breath- 
ing, gives no vigor, clarifies no blood, clears no brain, but sim- 
ply dilutes the oxygen so we can breathe it. Nitrogen is 
needed, is useful in a way. So are nitrogenous men needed. 
And there are nitrogenous men. 

They are useless for any great or important enterprises, 
but help fill up. Have no great mass of brain but enough to 
fill the space left vacant by nature. About so many men must 
die every vear. Just think what a loss of vital force there would 
be if every man dying was a real oxygen man ; again, if nothing 
but oxygen encircled the earth, it would set itself afire by the 
intensity of its own activity : so, if our Halls of Congress were 
filled with brainy, oxygen men only, we would see the Phoenix 
flame of genius bursting out through every crevice and cranny 
of our beautiful capitol and rising to the skies, encircle the 
whole heavens, like Phaethon of old. Don't be afraid ! Our 
capitol is safe ! There are plenty of nitrogenous men there. 
There will never be spontaneous combustion at Washington or 
Augusta. We need nitrogenous men everywhere. The world 
would get on too fast without them ; and many places would be 
left void without them. Where. O, where! would we get our 
supply of bar-room philosophers and grocery-store politicians ; 
where our rustic lawyers and senseless theologians if there were 
no nitrogenous men? Tell me, O thinking moralist! where 
shall husbands be found for that great mass of industrious, 
tired women who support themselves, family, husband and all, 



198 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

if all the men of straw are no longer in evidence to promise to 
protect and support? And what should we do in the social 
circle for amusement and entertainment if the grinning monkey 
in broadcloth, and the brainless golden calf should be annihi- 
lated? No, my beloved, we need them. Life would be too 
serious without them and probably right over across the way 
there is somebody of the gentler sex, softer she cannot be, 
who will be happy to lose her personal identity in a union highly 
beneficial to the party of the first part. And, indeed, nitroge- 
nous men and women are sometimes needed as a sort of 
balancing force in the social world. 

A highly charged, oxygen man should always form a union 
with a partner with a large percentage of nitrogen in her nervous 
constitution, so that when he becomes cross and irritable, fault- 
finding and restless, her calm demeanor, unexcitable nature, 
and non-combatable propensity will check the ungovernable 
impulses of the unreasoning enthusiast better than any argu- 
ment or force. But let two positive parties unite, both sur- 
charged with oxygen, if the divorce court does not raise up 
an adamantine wall between them, why then, my fellow teach- 
ers, never go there to board unless you are fond of pyrotechnics. 

On the other hand, let two purely nitrogenous persons 
unite, one result will surely follow : Love in a cottage, — a small 
one at that — will be the highest attainment and posterity will 
languish. I have spoken of these two classes in this matrimoni- 
al way simply because parties thus connected are the most inti- 
mately related, but the same idea is true in every relationship. 
Two friends remain friends the longest when there is a diver- 
sity of temperament. 

Now, my young friends, don't, I beg you, try to become 
nitrogenous because I have made this plea for the forceless 
man. Every institute boy and girl is expected to be an oxy- 
gen boy and girl, a young man and woman imparting life and 
energy through every vein, and artery, and capillary of the 
social world. Men do not have to trv to become useless. Too 



FUNNY PEOPLE 199 

many are horn so, and grow up that way by a spontaneous 
accumulation of negatives. There will be dead-heads enough 
in the world without a single specimen from Ricker. Don't let 
inertia be your only active force. 

! Ivdrogen is a notable element in nature. It is very light, 
spurns the bare earth, and is found soaring among the skies. 
It is made by the union of very common materials, but, like many 
nun, seems to forget its parentage, looking down with disdain 
upon all things less ethereal than itself. In the social world 
there are many persons who may be called hydrogen men. They 
think themselves better than others, imagine their conceptions 
are as much higher than those of other men as the illimitable 
space is loftier than a cabbage patch. They carry their heads 
very high, impelled by a law of equilibrium. A rubber bag, 
filled with hydrogen will rise until it reaches an atmosphere as 
light as itself, and then rests. 

The men I have mentioned, should the force of gravity 
be suspended, would leave the earth instantly, and go up, up, 
up, — how far? Philosophers believe there is a spot, infinitely 
far away where nothing is — an empty void — ah, there the 
equilibrium would be perfect, and there they would forever 
remain, hanging, like empty bladders, for the delectation of 
the man in the moon, if the old woman that sweeps the cobwebs 
from the sky did not disturb them. 

And yet a spark of electricity will unite oxygen and hydro- 
gen so perfectly that a drop of the purest liquid God ever made 
will trickle forth. So when an impetuous oxygen man becomes 
associated in business with the hydrogen man and a spark of 
ambition unites them in common sympathy, the wheels of prog- 
ress will rapidly revolve impelled by an abundant water power. 

Young man, young lady, if you have too much hydrogen in 
the cranium, take on twice as much oxygen even at the risk 
of dropsy on the brain. 

Phosphorous is another element in the physical world 
totally antagonistic to nitrogen. Some one has rather wick- 



200 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

edly said that it is a kind of Baptist element, as it has to be 
closely connected with water to keep it in a pure state. It is 
very erratic, liable to spontaneous combustion, will light the 
house, kindle a fire for breakfast, burn up the house, cook and 
all, the schoolhouse and the church ; but, when properly com- 
bined, it becomes safe, useless, and almost indispensable. So 
there are phosphorus men, ready to strike fire at any moment, 
whenever the least friction occurs. They are very active but 
lack discretion. They fly into a whirlwind of passion on the 
slightest provocation and almost drown themselves in tears of 
repentance the next moment. Such men, such women should 
never live alone. Phosphorus has few affinities. It will only 
combine readily with sulpher and a piece of pine. Form this 
combination properly, — a first-class match is produced, a very 
useful article. So when a choleric, sometimes fiery tempered 
man takes for his affinity a sulphurous woman there is a match 
made that will burn with a steady glow after the first sulphur- 
ous smoke and splutterings are over. 

Phosphorus in the physical world has another use. It is 
one of the constituents of the brain. It is that which gives the 
intense activity to the brain of the great men of action. 

Now, my young friends, a large amount of this element in 
the laboratory of Ricker Classical School might be dangerous, 
but you can, with perfect impunity, lay up in the laboratory 
of your cranium enough to give you ten in every recitation, 
and make you a brilliant member of society later in life. Don't 
be afraid of spontaneous combustion, and don't expect your 
stomachs, stuffed with fish, to furnish the brain with phos- 
phorus. The contents of books, meditation, discipline, great 
desires, and ready execution, is the food that keeps the phos- 
phorus fires burning in the brain. 

Young ladies, if, later in life, you would make a good 
match, keep those phosphorus fires ever burning. Young 
man, if a brilliant career is your ambition, let not fuel now be 
lacking. 



FUNNY PEOPLE 201 

Mercury is a cranky element in the physical world. It 
is a metal, but, unlike every other metal, persists in remaining 
liquid at anywhere above forty degrees below zero. It is some- 
times used for a medicine but in the opinion of many it kills 
more than it cures. But it is good for one thing, at least. It 
is death on the itch. So you see there is use for the crank 
even in the social world. I have a certain respect for a man who 
cannot help being a crank. Some men are made so. They can- 
not help differing from the rest of humanity. But they are not 
entirely useless. The world can use them as the homeopath 
cures his patients; "Similia similibus curantur" is an old 
proverb. They may be used to kill off other cranks. But we 
do owe something to the crank of history. Occasionally some 
enthusiastic crank has made a great discovery, but it is usually 
an accidental one. 

If the cranks, like the old alchemists, could be shut up in 
umbrageous log huts, or under-ground cloisters, and allowed 
to come out only when a real discovery had been made, then we 
would say with enthusiasm: "Let there be cranks!'* 

If every crank would confine himself to cranky notions 
and subjects, and let us poor common people alone, still would 
I say: "Salvate, O Cranks," without regard to race or sex. 
But there are many subjects which cranks should never meddle 
with. These interests are too interwoven into the weal or woe 
of common human humanity. All matters of public interest, 
of common morals, and beneficial laws should never be even 
discussed by men of one idea. 

No, let the crank leave these subjects alone, and try to dis- 
cover how to bottle up dynamic force, or make politicians honest, 
or find the accurate rule for squaring the circle. — or some 
method of converting a bore into a useful windmill. The 
religious crank is beyond endurance. He will fill a volume in 
describing the delicate structure of an insignificant gnat, while 
an array of camels go trooping down by without attracting the 
least notice. He will swallow a theological camel with a hump 



202 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

on his back as high as a church steeple and never strangle nor 
choke, while, with Sam Weller's extra double-acting micro- 
scope he is hunting for a schismatic gnat hidden in some 
brother's church creed. Religion is the most reasonable and 
common sense thing in the world. It should occupy the atten- 
tion of every man, woman and child every day. God never 
designed it for the exclusive benefit of hermit, nun, or priest, 
but for all. He only who by actual association with man, has 
learned by the anxious heartbeats of the restless world, should 
attempt to interpret God's revealed will to man. 

The educational crank is also a great nuisance. He wakes 
up some morning with the echo of a fevered dream still rever- 
berating through his mind. He immediately, like Don Quix- 
ote, starts out on a Rosinato received from some bankrupt 
advertizer and fights windmills with sycophantic Sancho Pan- 
zas applauding and brings home Saratoga trunks full of rib- 
bons and gew-gaws for the adornment of country school teach- 
ers so they may be able to entertain the little folks and teach 
them. Had I the ability I should like to write a chapter on 
these trophies — the "exploded facts" that these dons have advo- 
cated. Better let them lay on the shelf labeled plainly with 
"vertical penmanship" till the proper writer rises. 

Gold seems to be the old maid of the metal world. I 
have a great regard for old maids : so I have for gold, when 
it belongs to me. Gold does not attract by any self-reaching force. 
All admire it, long for it, somehow few can get it. It is pure, 
always worth something, and never becomes really tarnished. 
We need just such people in every community. What should 
we do without our old maids? They are the fostering patrons 
of the human race, stand by the sick-bed, close weary eyes 
in death and place the last flowers beside the cold form bedewed 
with tears. God bless the old maids of our land. The old 
maids are not the ineligibles. They are smart, mostly good- 
looking, and have every quality to make a first-class wife, but 
do not marry. Why? Simply because they are too good for 



FUNNY PEOPLE 203 

any one man. Providence did not mean that their ministrations 
should be confined to one selfish man, but that many should 
be blessed by their love, care, assiduity and prayers. 

Gold is the most precious of metals. It is good everywhere 
with the stamp and image of kings and queens upon it. Its 
value is universally acknowledged, but the veriest beggar could 
not make its value less by enstamping his image thereon. No 
corner of the earth would debar gold from its territory. 

So there are gold men, gold women, golden boys and girls. 
No matter whether joy or sorrow impresses its stamp upon the 
brow, the heart is gold, unpolluted by base metals, always at 
par, never in liquidity. 

There are many base imitations. Brass resembles gold in 
color, and often passes for it, but the most unsophisticated can 
soon detect the imposition. There are men of brass, but they 
do little harm, as it develops mostly upon the cheek and one blast 
of cold contempt exposes the base constituents. 

There is another chemical compound resembling gold. 
It appears in beautiful cubes, shining with the luster of gold. 
It will, like the diamond, cut glass, reflect light and ap- 
pears to be of great value. It resembles two or three precious 
stones in those respects. Tons of this compound have been 
quarried with the secret expectation of untold riches. It forever 
is holding out false hopes to a gullable world and often de- 
ceives. The chemist calls it iron pyrites, in the chemical 
world and we call the type among mien a quack. Shun them 
all ; all quack mines, quack friends, quack doctors, quack re- 
formers, and appletree men, and quack schoolmasters. 

We come back again to nitrogen. We said it was a mys- 
terious element. In the air it is simply a passive, idle existence, 
but that same Nitrogen, mixed with certain other elements, 
becomes the symbol of intense activity. Combine it with glyc- 
erine and we have one of the most destructive, diabolical agents 
in nature. A thimbleful would destroy this hall in the twink- 
ling of an eye. 



204 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



We see now how it is in social life. A man out among 
men where the combination is just right, will be the very person- 
ification of good nature and smiles, but at home, where the wife 
happens to supply the glycerine, — something really good in it- 
self, — he becomes a bottled-up earthquake, an already full 
grown cyclone, a smoking volcano, all ready to belch forth and 
fill the house with domestic smoke, cinders, and ashes! Some- 
times the nitrogen is the mistress of the house. What then? 
The question is past solution, and I pass. 

There are a few elements with a very limited range of 
affinity. They are good, useful and effective when acting 
alone, but seem always to prefer to thus act. It took forty 
years hard study to find anything that would unite with caout- 
chouc. At last it was discovered that when sulphur was united 
with it there was a perfect union, and a very valuable com- 
pound produced quite unlike either. So there are, in the 
social world, characters that seem to have no ready combining 
power ; they fail to attract or be attracted. We call them old 
bachelors. 

As woman was created last, she seems to have been sup- 
plied with every characteristic necessary to perform the duties 
of life. With man it was different. It was found that he 
lacked something; so a new creation was ordered to supply 
the deficiency. That new creation was woman ; hence she be- 
comes an actual necessity to round out the completeness of his 
existence. Hence the bachelor is incomplete without the 
chastening, refining, up-lifting, stimulating influence of women. 

There must have been created for every bachelor at least 
one helpmate for him and if he ever finds her, what a change 
takes place. He is no more like his former self than the old- 
fashioned gum shoe is to the modern tony overshoe. 

Another important fact we learn from the laboratory is 
that the elements that form sugar, alchohol, starch and vine- 
gar, are the same combined in different proportions. Starch is 
rather unstable and passes readily into alcohol, sugar or vine- 



FUNNY PEOPLE 205 

gar, according to conditions. A little more Oxygen will develop 
the one, a little more Nitrogen another. Now the conditions 
must be carefully studied to procure the required result. Sugar 
is the basis of all these combinations, and from this alone the 
others may be evolved, with only slight modifications. 

The statement was made, a few moments ago, that the most 
precious metals sank when the crust of the earth cooled. These 
were thrown up to the surface later by volcanic force. Nothing 
but a convulsion of the earth could bring them to the surface. 
So, in the social and political world, it takes great social and 
political upheavals to bring the best to the surface. As the 
present form of this beautiful world was accomplished by 
earthquakes and volcano, so civilization has been advanced by 
social and political commotions, each leaving the status of affairs 
in a better condition. 

The Carboniferous Age covered the earth with a luxuriant 
growth of lofty trees, but they were of an inferior order. 
Something better the coming ages needed ; and the far-off, 
prophetic age in which humanity would exist, would require 
fuel in abundance. So all those lofty, waving palms must be laid 
low and piled one upon another, to sleep the long ages through, 
till the tireless, inquisitive eye of man discovered coal, and his 
industrious hand conveyed it to fireside and furnace. So many 
a fair civilization must sleep that others may arise, more glori- 
ous, warmed and lightened by the imperishable relics of the 
past. \ 

But great convulsions took place in nature, so they must 
in society. But progress always is made. 

It takes a political earthquake oftimes to put the best nun 
into office. I am aware that sometimes those CDmmotions, 
at first, make very cheap men prominent, and elevate dema- 
gogues to the position of statesmen, just as iron pyrites are mis- 
taken for gold, but such men are readily detected and laid aside 
as worthless. But the gold freed from the bare elements shines 
all the brighter and never loses its native characteristics. 



206 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

And now, my dear ladies in the school, just a word to you. 
God has placed within your souls a combination of forces found 
in no other human hearts. Your father has it not, your mother 
does not now possess it ; the Professor cannot claim it and the 
clergyman would pray for it in vain. If there is an 'mage of an 
ideal God I could worship, it is the soul of a young girl, before 
the cares of life have sobered her, before the sorrow of disap- 
pointments has robbed her of her sublime faith, before she has 
ever discovered that it is possible to even tolerate the coarse, the 
low, or anything less than the purest, the truest and sweetest; 
before failure has robbed her of the fruition of her glorious 
dream ; while she is yet a creature fresh from the hand of God, 
with the odors of Eden distilling around her. 

Ah, how unlike the heartless coquette or the match-making 
anglers of later years sometimes. There is, my young friends, 
sweetness in your young souls. God gave it to you for a pur- 
pose. That sweetness you can preserve there and take to 
Heaven with you. Carefully guard it. Preserve your hearts. 
Be as careful of the heart of others as you are of the fragile 
butterfly that flits at your feet. 

When sugar has been thoroughly refined it becomes the 
most imperishable substance in the world. Let the spirit of the 
peace-giving Christ be the refiner ; then you will become the 
embodiment of all that can charm, elevate and enoble. But 
don't forget that unrefined sugar changes to vinegar tomorrow, 
or mayhap, into potential life-destroying alcohol, carrying with- 
in itself the seed of poison and death. 

Let the fidelity of a Ruth immortalize you, the self-sacrifice 
of Esther glorify your life, the purity of Francis Willard 
sanctify you and let your own lives embalm your memory in the 
hearts of all associated with you. 

But please remember that it is the lovely girl with all her 
glorious attributes that becomes the designing woman of the 
world when her heart has become the rallying place for wicked 
designs and unlovely desires. Mrs. Chadwick is said to have 



FUNNY PEOPLE 207 

been a most fascinating, charming girl of fourteen. Remember 
gold is alloyed ; base lead, never. The worst heart possible can 
only be made from a noble one. There are associations you 
can form which heighten every lovely characteristic you now 
possess, will stimulate every ambition and aspiration and beau- 
tify even beauty itself. When a famous Grecian sculptor had 
carved a statue of Minerva so perfectly that all Athens declared 
it perfect, beyond improvement, Pericles, with chisel and mal- 
let, in a few hours wrought such a change that the statue 
became ever after the model of all that was beautiful and sub- 
lime in sculpture. That model every young lady may become. 

Boys, young men. in your souls there ouLdit to be much that 
exists in the young ladies', and more. Upon yon should rest 
responsibilities that she ought not to assume, hut there is no 
reason why you should not be as cultivated, refined and pure as 
she. This does not imply that you should ever become an 
effeminate or "carpet-knight." A young man becomes as lov- 
able as the most accomplished young lady and all the time be 
fighting the battle of life with the most strenuous means. We 
need but few Adonises, but many Hercules. 

There are. in your mental laboratory, many forces, given by 
God and inherited from parents. All you have to do is to make 
the proper combination with coming forces. The growth of a 
stalk of wheat straw illustrates, in the physical world how the 
young man should progress in the human world. That stalk 
grows very fast for a time, very tall and green ( I have been a 
boy), anon a head appears, filled with some very valuable mate- 
rial but it isn't wheat yet, but will make wheat in due time. 

The head now stands up very straight and is caught by 
every breeze. In a few days to the starch already there albu- 
men is added, then an envelope of silica surrounds it all. Now 
we have a real kernel of wheat. The head is a little swelled, to 
be sure, but will subside in due time. Xext the head begins to 
maturelv gaze less to the stars, and more toward earth, and it 
is just here that nature comes in and sends up the stalk a large 



20 8 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

amount of silica. This is plastered all up and down the stock 
and forms a sort of back-bone so firm that, no matter how heavy 
the head becomes, it stands perpendicular. 

With many young men there is a perfect development in all 
respects except the backbone part of it. A most essential omis- 
sion. No matter what else he has he is useless without a stiff 
backbone so that, no matter what the temptation is, "No" is the 
easiest word to say. A backbone that will not wilt when ridicule 
assails, appetite urges, and friends persuade ; a backbone that 
will not bend when principles are at stake ; that will stand erect 
when endeavor begins to flag ; when pleasant fields in the valley 
attract more than mountain height, when less than the first ideal 
seems to satisfy; when, in fact, you are being content to fall 
below any attainable heights. 

The lack of silicious deposit is not confined to the young. 
The lack of it is felt every day in almost every community. It 
is noticed when righteous, though unpopular, laws are to be 
enforced, when improper candidates solicit votes, when duty 
requires action, and self-interest restrains. 

Iodine shows a peculiar trait. It passes from a solid to 
a gaseous state without becoming liquid. So there are iodionic 
people in the world. Most people rise and fall by regular 
grades. The man. solid on some moral or political subjects, 
begins to mielt a little, softens day by day, till at length every 
molecule of his conscience is in sliding condition. He is now 
what the text books call in unstable condition. He then easily 
passes into a gaseous condition. 

The reverse process is sometimes true when a person 
decides to change for the better. But occasionally we see men 
and women unyeilding as Plymouth Rock converted into gase- 
ous approval of some obnoxious idea by an almost instantaneous 
spiritual somersault ; and return again to adamantine crystals 
before the ashes are cold that, a little while ago, caused the 
transformation. 



FUNNY PEOPLE 209 

Young men have sometimes discovered this sudden change 
in the affinity of yesterday, which today becomes actively repel- 
lant. 

These iodine men are not very dangerous when well under- 
stood ; but it is sometimes disagreeable to find a man solid one 
hour and gaseous the next in matters that concern us. 

Iron is, perhaps, the most useful metal in the physical 
world. It remained on the surface when the other metals sank, 
affording an opportunity to men to obtain and use it. It is the 
most commonplace metal in existence, and has done more for 
civilization than all other metals combined. It makes railroads 
possible, steamships practicable and life enjoyable. It boasts 
not at all, but faithfully does its work, modestly and untiringly. 

So, in this great, bustling, toiling, practical, social world of 
ours, the men of iron build the cities, railroads, and navies; 
carry forward every great reform, and are co-workers with the 
Almighty in pushing toward every good work. 

Some metals are isomeric ; that is, they appear under two 
forms, the brilliant, flashy diamond is simply carbon ; so is the 
black, unsightly stick of graphite. The one is imperishable, 
valuable, a thing of beauty. The other wears itself away at 
every touch, and can be bought in every market at smallest 
price. One is crystalized, the other is not. So the same 
amount of facts in one cranium is always available, is brilliant ; 
while in others there is simply a mass of undigested facts, easily 
rubbed out, soon gone forever. Every thought in the human 
mind is only valuable when fully crystalized. This process 
takes place in the mind, just as it does in the laboratory. 

Conditions must be met to produce crystals in the chemical 
world. So thought will crystalize only under certain conditions. 
Facts put into the crucible of the mind, only crystalize when 
they are associated in such a way that like seeks like, and that 
they have the proper time to crystalize. No mental work can be 
done in a hurry. Facts must be accumulated in logical order, 
and time given for meditation before clear-cut results can 

14 



2io THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

be obtained. We learn from chemistry that most useful 
things have many constituents. That article of food 
that produces but one ingredient in the body is regarded 
as a medicine rather than a food. So is it with men. That 
man who has but one attracting power will ever be lonely in a 
world where there are men everywhere, hungering for some- 
thing that a brother man only can give. 

Why is it, we may ask, that Mr. A. or Miss B. has such 
power among his associates ? Simply this ; he has a soul full of 
vital forces, assimilating agencies, attractive powers ; has some- 
thing, some element, every other man can assimilate. It is 
thought that albumen has 143 differing constituents. Think of 
it! 143! Now albumen is found in eggs, in wheat, in meat, 
and, in fact, in most living things. It is the albuminous man 
that is the power in the world. There is something in him that 
all men can appreciate ; the wise seek to learn wisdom from him ; 
the ignorant, knowledge ; the weak, strength ; the old man of 
seventy and the child of two are attracted to him because he 
thinks as they think, loves as they love, can solve the deep prob- 
lem of science, or roll the hoop, ride a velocipede or rule the 
nation. 

This spiritual affinity, operating in the hearts of the human 
race, is by far the most important factor used by the Creator for 
the intellectual and spiritual elevation of humanity. Words 
may bring tears to the eyes ; eloquence may excite the hearer to 
rapturous applause ; heroic deeds light up the eye with a pas- 
sionate enthusiasm, but all these, on the cold, calculating mor- 
row, have lost their charm and power and the heart remains 
unmoved toward any assimilation ; but when an undefined some- 
thing, a love it may be, for some abstract virtue or art; a fel- 
low-feeling for another's sorrow arises, when, in fine, one can- 
not tell why it is that he loves that friend so dearly, then the 
real, imperishable love, Heaven ordained, of the human soul 
begins to permeate heart, brain, eye and every fiber of one's 
being, and a new creature then appears. 



FUNNY PEOPLE 211 

The flint rock that defies the action of the strongest acids, 
laughs in definance at the drill of the artisan and the hammer 
of the geologist : bedewed with teardrops from the skies, and 
kissed by the smiling sunlight, yields up its stubborn spirit and 
becomes the productive soil of our alluvial fields. So are hearts 
softened, characters changed, and new ministering spirits made 
among men by the undefinable influence of a congenial soul. 

The friendships among men are as mysterious as are many 
of the chemical unions in nature. But they do not just happen. 
Somewhere in the heart of one there is a susceptibility which 
something in the soul of the other causes to vibrate. There is need 
in the one, a supply in the other and as long as these conditions 
remain true, so long will they love and delight each other. 

I said, a few minutes ago, that oxygen was the great centra) 
element around which all others center ; that this element had a 
great influence on the character of the others. So, in the spirit- 
ual world, there must be a rallying point, a spiritual force 
toward which all naturally tend, the center, and are changed by 
that association. 

Society could no more exist without this center than could 
the heavenly body revolve around empty space in the sky. 
The old Greek philosonher conceived that power was a triune 
one, and thought if he could but discover the true, the beauti- 
fut and the good, with never a false tint, and every line faultless, 
these he would defy and cause the whole social world, by cen- 
tripetal force, to revolve around these, until man became the 
embodiment of truth ; lover of nothing but the beautiful and the 
good. But he never found them. But the Magi of the East 
did when they discovered the Child of Bethlehem, and countless 
multitudes since have known that a power, not of men, is draw- 
ing all to one common center, that a heart beating for all created 
humanity, filled with attributes that attract every soul, glories 
| with love for each and all, is binding restless humanity to a com- 
mon center — the man Christ, the beloved. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

SCHOOL OFFICERS. 

In my long connection with school officers, I have had some 
peculiar experiences. On the whole, their treatment of me has 
been all that could be desired. Whenever the committee and 
superintendent have been educated and qualified for the position, 
there has been harmony and mutual good feeling. That a man 
knowing the least about a matter is the most censorious, is an 
old proverb. There can be no doubt that there are corporals 
in Oyama's army who criticised his movement northward. 
There isn't a street loafer in any town who cannot solve every 
question of finance that puzzles experienced statesmen. 

Of all the contemptible little specimens of humanity whom, 
for purposes unknown, an inscrutable ruler of the universe 
allows to hold positions of authority, the most nauseating is 
a man who knows but little, but who, for personal spite, or self- 
interest, or just to exhibit a little show of authority, struts and 
swaggers, and swells in his puny world, and abuses those as 
superior to him as he is below the Hottentot. How much 
harm such men do sometimes ! 

There is another class of men who are great nuisances, 
but they are more excusable. These men are proficient in 
something, and, because they know how to build a chimney or 
hold a plow, think they can arrange a course of study for a 
school, or select proper text-books, and criticize the work done 
in a schoolroom. These men are honest as far as they can 
be, but have such an insurmountable bump of egotism that they 



SCHOOL OFFICERS 



213 



can never be of any use outside of the one little thing they have 
learned. 

There is another class who take many opportunities to 
learn how teachers of prominence conduct their exercises, and 
come back with a large amount of facts, but have not the 
skill to use these with any profit. Those they do use are 
so colored by their predisposed opinions that it is like new cloth 
on an old garment. 

No one who does not know all about teaching, who is not 
a school teacher, who is not posted in modern methods, has 
any right to attempt to dictate to those who are by education, 
training, and experience fully fitted for the work. If the proper 
man cannot be found for Inspector, then let a man of common 
sense, a business man, be appointed, and let him select a teacher 
as he would an electrician, or an engineer, or a surveyor, by 
means of certificates from past fields of labor. Business men 
all over the country are conducting enterprizes of vast impor- 
tance on just this line. They know nothing of the practical 
working of the vast machinery of their business, but men are 
chosen to preside over each, in whom the proprietor has con- 
fidence. 

No teacher should be employed in a new position unless 
his fitness is unmistakably proved. If this is done to the satis- 
faction of the committee, surely there should be as little inter- 
ference with his work as possible. If he is not doing good 
work, it will become apparent very soon to student and commit- 
tee and community. When this is seen, let that teacher depart. 

I have had considerable fun in observing the performances 
of some of my official visitors. Now I wish to repeat that the 
most of these persons have been qualified, kind, and impartial 
and I have worked in perfect harmony with them. But there 
were some striking exceptions. 

When a certain man came in. I always reduced the noise 
of the school to the minimum, so as not to disturb his slumbers. 
He would sleep so placidly, with such a child-like expression 



214 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

on his face that I hadn't the heart to disturb him. I always 
dropped a stick of wood upon the floor to awaken him when the 
time for speech-making came. He always commended the good 
order. I gave another man, who pretended to know Greek, 
a German reader while the class read Homer, and he didn't 
know the difference. He said they translated admirably. 

One man asked the pupils if they would all be ready to be 
examined the thirty-first day of September ; and they said they 
thought not. He said that that day would convene him best, 
and urged them to be ready. The pupils were too polite to 
smile and so he passed out of the house, feeling sure he had car- 
ried a point, and had corrected Julius Caesar and all the Popes. 

In one school eight weeks had elapsed, and there were four 
weeks remaining. The superintendent asked what fractional 
part of the term had passed. The class answered "Two-thirds." 
"No," said he, with a knowing look upon them and a disap- 
proving scowl upon me, "You are wrong." 'T will ask you 
again before I leave." Just as he stood in the door, when de- 
parting, he asked the same question again, and received the 
same answer. "You are wrong again" he said, "just eight- 
twelfths." And, smiling, he departed. 

One examination day, the class in German put an exercise 
on the board, and one of the committee, who thought he knew 
German, in his speech congratulated the class upon the accuracy 
of the work ; said he did not notice a mistake. I noticed that 
not a single sentence was just right, but it being examination 
day I held my peace ; but that class got some hazing next term. 

As I look over my old certificates, I see there is only one 
in which the name of the town was spelled without the assist- 
ance of a capital letter. 

Many of my school officers were my best friends, and I 
have taught years under the same persons without the least 
friction. I claim no infalibility in matters of teaching, and 
think I have always been ready to be criticised whenever there 
was need, and that criticism was offered by a competent party, 



SCHOOL OFFICERS 215 

and in the right spirit. I am sure I have the highest regard, 
today, for the great majority of those men who employed me 
and superintended my work. 

Some are dead. The memory of no man do I more cherish 
than that of Doctor Luce, and C. B. Roberts. Both these 
men assisted me in every way, and left a corner of the soul 
unsatisfied, when they died. Many others might be mentioned 
for whom I have the highest regard. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS. 

A pamphlet of a hundred pages has recently been published, 
in which the opinions of several very distinguished educators 
are set forth in regard to a college education. Anyone reading 
that book would certainly be very much in the condition of a 
man standing near the ancient tower of Babel after the language 
had been confounded. The Harvard idea conflicts with the 
Princeton; and the Chicago with all others. Some advocate 
a three years' course, others more advanced preparation. 

I propose to discuss the problem as it has presented itself 
to me through a long experience with young men fitting for 
college and a careful observation of undergraduates in college. 

The college president is not fully qualified to discuss the 
question, as he only sees the boys after they have been sub- 
jected to influences which he knows but little about. Before one 
can fairly discuss the question about the age and requirements 
of the student entering college there should be determined clearly 
— what is the object of sending a boy to College, what does a 
college course do for a boy; and what should it do? 

The obvious answer is that a systematic course of study 
trains and disciplines the mind, enlarges the mental capacities, 
and enables the student to comprehend more readily difficult 
mental problems. This is true ; but by no means all. The same 
result would be attained with a private teacher. College should 
do more than this. The young man graduating from college 
should go forth from the college halls a cultured man, a person 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 217 

who had become by the attrition of associates, by the discipline 
of study, by the moulding of character through the inspiration 
inherent in a struggle to attain through self-sacrifice a dis- 
tinctive individuality, "a perfect ashler," a polished image of the 
God that created him. 

That college educaton is a failure that does not mould every 
conception of life ; that does not ingraft itself into the formation 
of tastes, conceptions, and character. If this be true, then the 
conclusion naturally follows, that boys should be in college at 
the formative age of life, before their tastes, conceptions, and 
methods of reasoning are fixed. The boy should be studying the 
beauties of Greek conceptions, the artistic perfectness of Grecian 
architecture, both in language and in marble, while his own taste 
is being formed. Upon the mind of a young man of twenty, 
whose tastes and habits of thinking are to a great extent al- 
ready formed, the eloquence of Demosthenes is lost. He may 
admire the sublime rhetoric and unanswerable logic of the great 
master ; but the study of the "Oration on the Crown" does not 
mould his diction and unconsciously brighten his own rhetoric 
or sharpen his logic. 

The boy of sixteen or seventeen, reading that oration, is 
stirred to the depths of his soul with patriotic sentiments, he 
is ready to die for his fatherland, becomes classical in taste and 
expression, and derives from the study of Greek that undefinable 
"culture" that college only can give. 

The study of Latin literature should have its influence at 
the same formative period of life or it is partially lost. Of 
course, if a student goes to college for the simple purpose of 
rendering the intellect more acute, for the purpose of executing 
plans already formed, then the late college life is available; 
but he could obtain nearly the same discipline out among men 
in the active affairs of life. 

Perhaps I have not made my meaning clear, but this idea 
I have endeavored to advocate : that the young man should 
be in college at that time of life when the books he studies, the 



218 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

associations formed, the impressions received, should all become 
a constituent part of himself ; that they form his taste and con- 
ceptions, his loves and affinities ; that material, so to speak, be 
taken into the makeup of the mental man so that the "polish" 
of college life be possible. 

The conclusion we reach is that the student should enter 
college at an early age, and that the requirements should not be 
more than at present, but, indeed, less. That nothing less than 
a four-year course can do the work required. If the bustling 
young man of this uneasy age wants simply a practical edu- 
cation, a means whereby money can be obtained and means of 
livelihood, then let there be a course of study established in 
schools adapted to that purpose. But that is not culture; 
that is not receiving a college education. 

It seems that the day of real scholarship is over in the minds 
of many engaged in the education of youth. The age is too 
practical for its own good. There is still need of scholarship 
even in these days. I admit that specialists are very prominent 
in science and business, but if no one is to succeed the all-round 
scholar and thinker of the past, there will soon be a lack of the 
means whereby the specialist may prosecute his especial calling. 
Those means come only through the profound researches of 
the man who knows more than one specific truth. No man can 
become a profound thinker who reasons only from one point of 
view. No one human interest can be detached from the general 
interest appertaining to all the interests of humanity. One of 
the sad results of simply specific research is seen in the cold, 
unfeeling, atheistic sentiments emanating from scientific men 
prominently before the world. 

Parhassius tortured upon the rack a purchased captive 
that he might paint a face writhing with pain. Though that 
painter may have been the most famous of all painters, he never 
should have painted a picture that human eye should see. Every 
painting of the old masters extant today shows, somehow, in 
the prospective or background, a recognition of the common 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 219 

claims of humanity. Even the angels are painted with human 
forms, and faces lighted up with human emotions. 

But referring again to the formative age, we meet the 
objection that young boys are subjected to great temptations 
at college. I know whereof I speak when I assert that the temp- 
tations surrounding the boys in most schools where they are 
prepared for college are far more alluring and fatal than in 
college. Of course there are especial fitting schools where the 
students are especially cared for ; but more schools there are 
where this is impossible, and the unrestrained association of 
students and town boys is pernicious to an eminent degree. The 
boy forms tastes and habits that could never be possible in 
college. 

In the fitting schools there are coarse, uncultivated stu- 
dents, who are only there for a time, but whose influence can be 
felt ; these become, per necessity, associates. A young man rare- 
ly changes his secret tastes and desires after he is eighteen. 
Then put him into college young in life, where the refining 
influence of the seniors, the all inspiring dignity of the junior, 
and, if need be, the discretionary care of the sophomores, may 
all combinedly chisel out of the plastic marble a prefected, 
classical, all-round man whom the world needs, and God loves. 

Of course, there must be recognized the moral, refining, 
enthusing influence of the college faculty. This will, or ought 
to be, all-powerful for the accomplishing of the objects before 
mentioned. A college professor never knows what a power for 
good often lies dormant in his opportunity. No one can so 
model, uplift and lead out a human being as can that professor 
who feels that God has commissioned him to be a fellow worker 
with Himself in fashioning men. 

PREPARATION FOR TEACHING. 

How should teachers prepare themselves for work? They 
should first get a good academic education. Then, if convenient, 
attend a normal school. But I insist that thev should be thor- 



220 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

oughly prepared to teach, as far as requirements are concerned, 
before they go to the normal school. 

This is evident for many reasons. It is easy to see that no 
student has time or ability to accomplish the double work of 
learning a science and, at the same time, discovering how to 
teach that science. Whatever teaching "per se" is done in a 
normal school should be review work. Then the student can 
have his whole time and energy to perfect his knowledge of 
that science, and learn how to teach it. 

I certainly recommend young ladies and gentlemen to at- 
tend a normal school. We have some fine schools in Maine. 
I am personally acquainted with Prof. Corthell, of Gorham, 
who is one of the finest scholars, deepest thinkers, and syste- 
matic teachers in Maine. I also know Prof. Richardson, of 
Castine, and know him to be a scholar, a fine instructor, and a 
gentleman. 

Teachers should also visit schools where well-known teach- 
ers are employed, and observe how these teachers make use of 
the knowledge they have. Many graduates from the normal 
schools fail to be able to apply the knowledge they possess. 
They cannot apply the perfect model to the misshapen form pre- 
sented them to fit. The funniest thing I ever saw in the school- 
room, was to see a new graduate, who had never taught, try to 
run a model school of observation in an old schoolhouse, with 
twenty ill-assorted, unclassified, uncultured boys and girls. She 
tried all those side-lights recommended ; put on a new ribbon 
every day, and did up her hair in forty different ways ; tried 
to execute all the stilted maneuvers sometimes enjoined ; thought 
she could induce those uncultivated youngsters to become so 
in love with books that no mischief would be thought of ; spent 
half an hour the first day in showing why one and one make 
two ; and thus on through the day while "Confusion grew more 
confounded." 

It would be a fine idea to transport a normal school around 
on wheels one month a year, and let the professor and pupils 
see our schools as they really are in some rural districts. 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 221 

I close these remarks, as I began, by advising all who 
intend to teach to attend a Normal School. 

Further, no teacher should be allowed to remain in a school, 
who does not every day read something fitted to enlarge the 
mind, refine the taste, and give information. Of course, the 
teacher ought to constantly read books bearing upon his pro- 
fession, but by no means should he stop here. He should read 
poetry, essays, history, politics, library books in general. I am 
inclined to think that no teacher should receive a certificate who 
had not read "The Vicar of Wakefield," "Pilgrims Progress," 
"The Scarlet Letter," Longfellow's poems, "Ivanhoe," and who 
could not tell whether Ruth or Esther gleaned in the field, or 
what was the matter with Simon Peter's wife's mother. 

I care not what the scholastic acquirements of a person may 
be ; if they know nothing but text-books he is not fit to teach 
boys and girls. Another thought is this ; no man or woman 
should enter a school as teacher who has an interest outside of 
the schoolhouse tantamount to the work therein. The work 
there must be all-absorbing all engrossing. No teacher can do 
his duty in the schoolroom who lives there only six hours, and 
only in bodily form at that. While county supervisor, how 
often I saw teachers go through the routine of work like an 
automatic drilling machine. Their look, mind, interest, soul, 
were not there, but centered upon something interesting them 
more than did those exercises. 

I taught school one day, expecting to hear of the death of 
a dear friend every moment, and realized that night that I had 
robbed those pupils of six hours' service. I wish every pupil 
of mine who proposes to teach would go into the first school 
with the determination that he would never ask for another 
school. Then they would so work, so devote themselves to 
the work, that they would make the school such a success that 
the committee would be compelled to employ them. They 
would offer such teachers positions, unsolicited. I know a lady 
who has never solicited a position, since her first school. All 



222 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

may not be able to do this, especially where nepotism prevails, 
and the superintendent has a large circle of relations ; but the 
experiment is worth trying. 

A young man went, last fall, from Piscataquis county to 
Aroostook to teach. He made this resolve before he commenced 
school ; I will compel the committee to employ me another year. 
Any position in that town was placed at his disposal at the close 
of the term. 

Finally, that man or woman who would make teaching a 
life work must resolve to become, to a certain extent, a martyr ; 
but not a John Rogers. His enemies burned him. No teacher 
should allow disobedient pupils, unreasonable parents, or cranky 
inspectors to make him a martyr. I used to lie awake nights, 
made wretched and sleepless by the misbehavior of some vicious 
pupil ; but I soon learned that it was far better for him to lie 
awake than for me. When the conditions are of such a nature 
that the teacher must act on the defensive or offensive, he should 
not hesitate a moment. A defensive army is always at its worst. 
So is the teacher. 

TEACHING THAT PRODUCES POWER. 

{Delivered before Teachers' Association at Monson.) 
Power is that property of material or spiritual things which 
is capable of manifesting itself upon other material or spiritual 
things so as to bring forth results. Thus we say the dynamic 
power of nitroglycerine is iooo; of powder 75. A cord of 
wood has so much of caloric power. A flume of water has a 
certain amount of speed power when properly applied for me- 
chanical purposes. And this energy is always the same under 
like conditions. 

The same is true in the mental world. A thought has power 
in it when said thought has within itself, inherent in its 
nature, the capability of manifesting an influence upon other 
thought or mental conditions. That thought has power when it 
will do, in the mental world, what dynamite or steam will do 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 223 

in the physical world. Given a certain amount of dynamite, a 
mountain range of granite, an adequate, intelligent direction in 
application, — and the result is sure — a tunnel through the moun- 
tain. Given the mental capability of the human mind, a proper 
amount of power-producing thought, and a logical adaptation 
of the latter from the former, and the result is no less sure. 

Teaching that produces power. To produce is not to cre- 
ate. The Almighty alone creates, but nevertheless, the ma- 
jority of things in nature are the product of God's hand in the 
manipulation of his few creations. 

To produce is to combine given forms and influences so 
as to bring forth conceptions ; to so combine what is that new 
developments shall appear. To teach is to draw out what is 
within, — to assist in the combinations mentioned above ; to sug- 
gest to another the proper combination of facts and conceptions, 
so that a given result shall appear. 

In the material world power produced by humanity is the 
resultant of many forces, generally. A billiard ball is made by 
a skilful player, to execute a certain amount of work ; for in- 
stance, to strike two other balls, driving them in different di- 
rections, and going, itself, in a third direction. But to do this 
the player must estimate how hard he must strike the ball with 
the cue — just where the impact must be, he must carefully esti- 
mate the distance between the other balls, and how far his own 
is from each ; so that momentum, velocity, space, force, are all 
acting in and are all used by an all-directing intelligence, acting 
through the human brain, and the mechanical power of the 
arm. Let there be miscalculation in any one particular, the 
usual result is not obtained. There will be a result, be sure, 
but not the best. 

The man who would make a master stroke on a billiard 
table, must be master of all the conditions, and could only teach 
another to make the same stroke when the learner has some 
knowledge of reflected motion, momentum and space. Mental 
conclusions are never the offspring of only one mental force, act- 



224 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



ing on one objective point. To induce another to accept our 
theory of a certain condition necessitates discovering the exact 
condition of the mind upon which we propose trying our power 
of conviction. 

The politician, the sharper, and the omnipresent book agent 
understands this, and trims his sails to suit the breeze under 
which he finds each one sailing. 

I shall assume that the word "power" in the same text means 
power for good, a power that renders boys and girls proper 
agents for doing God's will in the world. This is the only 
power that ought to be developed, but not always the one that 
is in evidence in the moral world. Sometimes this power for 
evil is the result of misdirected efforts of unskilled workmen in 
the intellectual and moral field. 

The child presents himself to the teacher, not with an 
unmarked mental black-board upon which the teacher is to 
make certain lines and figures, but he comes with lines already 
written, crooked lines, zigzag lines, crossed and intermingled. 
There are many figures there but none that Wentworth him- 
self could use to demonstrate the simplest theorem. The child 
has many facts, more fictions, real knowledge and imaginary 
illusions and illogical conclusions, all in blissful confusion, 
piled up in his mental storehouse which very much resembles 
the contents of his pockets, where top, gum, jackknife, gum- 
drops and matches are jostling each other in dangerous prox- 
imity. 

In addition to this he has a moral nature in which generally 
antagonistic forces are seething like contents of an alchemist's 
crucible ; and all these mental and spiritual forces are housed 
in a physical dormitory and are acting upon the world outside 
through physical appliances. 

Now, in order that a boy shall take his place as an active 
force in the world and become a power which will add one iota 
to the individual, intellectual, financial, moral influence that 
is consistent with the nineteenth century, he must be so taught 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 225 

that there shall be a perfect conservation of the mental capacities 
of his brain, a full development of his moral conceptions, and a 
development of his physical sufficient to allow the most perfect 
mental activity. 

No one of these three can be neglected without deformity. 
If the mental alone be developed the boy may become an Aaron 
Burr, but never a Lincoln ; if the moral alone be matured, he 
becomes like the latent force of a subterranean stream, or gold 
hid in the mountain, a Hamlet, knowing his duty, but lacking 
force to execute it. And that teaching which unduly develops 
the physical at the expense of the other two reminds us of the 
man who plated his balance wheel and cylinder of his engine 
with gold, and took little care to have his steam box tight and 
in order, and his fires brightly burning. 

I have assumed the Platonic axiom in this paper — that the 
child has in his nature all the faculties he ever can possess — 
that all the teacher has to do is to help develop, combine and 
draw out those. There are, in the mental laboratory of the pupil 
many elements more than in the physical world. There is 
ambition, imagination, memory, logical deduction, curiosity, mis- 
chief, laziness, willfulness, cruelty, kindness, conscience, etc. 
Hence the regime of good teaching is that of good mental chemi- 
cal analysis. 

The teacher must play the same part in the work that Mnoi 
does in the development of oxygen from potassium chlorate. 
The very presence of the manganese seems to energize the other 
compounds ; but the manganese comes out from the crucible 
unchanged. 

Hence the teacher must first discover what there is in the 
pupil. He cannot teach him otherwise. It would be useless to 
dig for gold in our slate quarries. It would be foolish to at- 
tempt to precipitate silver from a solution in which no silver 
was contained. Teaching is oftentimes useless because it assimi- 
lates itself to nothing within the mind of the child. It is not 
always easy to discover just what is there, — a casual glimpse will 
not reveal it. 
15 



226 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

The other night, just after sunset, I stood by the bank of a 
lake. I noticed the crescent moon in the sky sailing majesti- 
cally over the lake. I could only see a silver crescent there, 
shining in all its beauty. No human eye could see more of that 
moon, but anon the twilight, fading, fled across the lake, and 
the stars began to peep forth, one by one, and Lo ! in the arms of 
the crescent the complete orb of the moon appeared ! So must 
the student be studied, by daylight, by twilight, by search light, 
by the midnight lamp of meditation, and every known force 
in him be discovered and used, not crushed out, not covered up, 
but used, used, used. 

His imagination, which naturally leads to untruthfulness 
and fish stories, should be combined with some dull factor that 
has no chemistry in its nature. I knew a student once that could 
never learn to decline a Greek adjective till imagining himself 
a Demosthenes he roared it, with a mouth full of pebbles, out on 
the barren sea-shore. It then became easy. The very pebbles 
seemed to fix the slippery endings. 

The student's very sluggishness may be made a balance 
Wheel, which once compelled to revolve, will produce constant 
force. 

The teaching that produces power must be that method 
which will assist the student to make some use of every impulse, 
thought and capacity of the mind and to waste none of them. 
But just here, fellow teacher, there is need of caution. A 
proper charge of powder in a rifle sends the ball with the re- 
quired force and right to the bull's-eye. If the quantity were 
trebled there would be a great waste of powder and no more 
dynamic force. 

It is the all-round scholar we want to assist in forming ; and 
when only one particular faculty is developed, by the neglect 
of others, there is a waste. 

I know there is a tendency today toward specific training 
for one definite end. The idea seems to be to discover just 
what the student intends to become, and then bring every force 



COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS 227 

to bear to perfect him in that one thing. The idea is detri- 
mental to all good mental training and to a successful attain- 
ment of the object in view. Teachers discovering some remark- 
able development in one direction are too apt to pursue this 
to the great detriment of the weaker mental exhibitions. 

The mistake that we make right here is the result of a 
misconception of the human mind. We speak of it as though 
it is made up of parts — each one acting along its own line of di- 
rection ; when the fact is, the indivisible mind acts, with more 
or less energy, in all its lines of action. 

The mind of the pupil, like the alchemist's crucible, contains 
many thoughts, emotions, and conceptions, as I before remarked. 
A crystal is the perfection of any element, and any element may 
by crystalized. So may any thought ; and said thought is 
never a part of any education till it is crystalized. 

Now the teacher has before him a human mind, a mental 
crucible in which a host of conditions exist, and if power be 
produced, he must assist in making the best combination possible. 
He must dissolve some, form others, and teach how the desired 
crystalization may be obtained. There is nothing in natural 
chemistry that cannot be made to combine ; so, I claim, there is 
not a thought in the boy's soul that cannot be utilized by some 
combination. The teacher must often play the part of the 
Mno2, — but not always the same, — sometimes more explanation 
is needed, sometimes more patience obtains a new combination, 
oftentimes a smile, sometimes a frown. Love one day may be 
the talisman and severe discipline the next. 

Crystals are generally imperishable. The diamond is al- 
most indistructable. The graphite, composed of the same ele- 
ment as the diamond, shows its perishing nature on anv line 
of written paper. 

To sum up : that teaching produces power that assists the 
student to assimilate what is already in him to what he wishes 
to add thereto. Second ; to show the laws and rules of crystali- 
zation so that every thought shall be a crystal, pure, brilliant, 
recognized and imperishable. 



228 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Thought that is only half crystalized like the graphite easily 
passes away, or becomes absorbed by other thoughts, and is 
lost. No lesson, however trivial, should be pronounced accom- 
plished till perfectly crystalized. Thought is mental process 
when thus perfected like the diamond, will execute. The dia- 
mond cuts the hardest steel, makes its impress upon the flint 
rock, and never grows dim. 

So the immortal thought of the human soul in its best 
state knows no defeat and writes its triumph upon the adaman- 
tine walls that would bar its progress. 






CHAPTER XXVII. 

PERSONAL. 

I have been a member of several societies. I was made a 
Mason when twenty-three years old. I have always enjoyed 
the institution, and a year ago, became associated with the 
Eastern Star organization. This institution, I think is beauti- 
ful, helpful and inspiring. There is a wholeness to the idea 
embraced in a voluntary secret society exemplified in the Star 
Society that is very pleasing. The father, mother, daughter, 
can there all meet together and each receive all the benefits that 
the others do. After all, the family is the grand unit, heaven 
ordained and self-centered, around which all pleasure and profit 
centers. 

It was inevitable that the Chapter of the Eastern Star 
should arise. The condition of social affairs in the twentieth 
century made it a necessity. Whenever any institution is born 
in the fulness of the times, it must flourish and never die as 
long as the conditions continue and the need remains. 

The star came legitimately into existence, and will illumi- 
nate the Masonic horizon as long as the sun rises in the east. 
Its influence upon the sisters is wonderful in developing those 
interests so long dormant, and no man can spend an hour in the 
society of cultivated ladies without being made better : purer 
in thought, and hotter in manners. It is in a congregated capac- 
ity that the refining influence of woman best manifests itself. 
In private life this is less apparent because the little foibles inci- 
dental to the sex show themselves — but in public, never. Their 
better sense of propriety in public shields them even from these. 



230 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

I joined the Odd Fellows in 1889, and was very much inter- 
ested in the order while living where there was a lodge, but 
when I went away, I lost interest and fell out. I shall always 
have a good word to say of the order. 

Two years ago, I joined the Grange. Mr. Gardner had 
suggested that a lawyer could not be admitted, but the Grange 
followed the advice of Deacon Jones and took me in. In a cer- 
tain town there was a revival of religion, and a lawyer became 
converted and applied to the church for admission. The church 
hesitated a little, but Deacon Jones arose and said : "Brethren, 
I have already investigated the matter and have discovered that 
he is not lawyer enough to hurt him any." So they took 
him in. 

The Grange seems to me a grand institution, and is doing 
a magnificent work. The work done by the Grange in the towns 
remote from centers is beyond computation. These towns have 
not churches nor other organizations. The Grange gathers the 
people together in orderly lines. All have an opportunity to 
became participants in the exercises of the meetings and 
become trained in methods of doing things properly. And more 
than this, much is learned beneficial to the interests of the farm- 
er. Still more, and most important, it has dignified the occu- 
pation, reconciled the young man who was getting uneasy, to 
stay on the farm and devote his best energies to own and beau- 
tify a farm of his own. The Grange has mended the broken 
fences, painted the houses, and adorned the front yard, and put 
newspapers and books upon the parlor table. 

While teaching at Monson I was ordained to the ministry 
and was the acting pastor of the Baptist church. During those 
three years twenty-eight were added to the church, if I remem- 
ber correctly, the bell was purchased and a new organ bought. 

In my spare moments I occasionally read law. I wrestled 
with Blackstone for a year or two, and other law books, more 
for the sake of knowing about law than with the expectation of 
practicing it. 



PERSONAL 231 

In 1869, on the motion of the Hon. A. G. Lebroke, I was 
admitted to the bar. I did not attempt to practice to any ex- 
tent, as other matters absorbed nearly all my time. My first 
case was a divorce case. One of my old pupils was unfortunate 
in her choice of a husband, and she desired a divorce. I obtained 
it for her and received, — her thanks. I next defended a man 
who had struck another man on the head with a sled-stake. 
I got him off for one dollar and costs. I received a lantern 
and some promises for my services. The promises were never 
redeemed. Like Diogenes, I wore out the lantern looking for 
an honest client. I have sometimes regretted that I did not 
continue my legal studies and practice ; but "quien sabe" per- 
haps it is just as well. 

The chief reason why I did not was this ; about that time 
I signed a sheriff's bond for several thousand dollars, and the 
party sued converted the property and went into bankruptcy, 
and I was called upon to pay his debts. I had an opportunity to 
earn more immediate money than I could at law, so continued 
to teach, but have never entirely abandoned the study of abstract 
law. 

I have alwavs been glad that I obtained what knowledge 
I did. What knowledge I had became very useful in the school- 
room in certain branches. I do not understand how a teacher 
can teach the Constitution of the United States without some 
knowledge of legal terms. 

The lawyer's office has always been a favorite loafing 
place for me. I have been acquainted with quite a large num- 
ber of lawyers and have found them, on the whole, a fine lot of 
men. 

I wish here to acknowledge the many pleasant hours spent 
in the office of C. W. Hayes of Foxcroft, who has shown me 
much kindness and entertained me pleasantly in instructive 
conversation. I also thank Judge Smith of Dover for his kind 
assistance. 



232 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



I used to call upon a young- lawyer, twenty years ago, who 
was very studious. But he did not confine his study to law 
books ; he read good literature, poetry, all those books that 
refine the taste, correct the diction, and expand the mind. That 
young man is now on the bench of the Supreme Court of Maine. 
Who knows how much the classical style, choice selection of 
words, admirable diction, has been shaped by that early reading! 
I do not think any professional man can afford to ever neglect 
reading good books. 

The study of law is as good discipline as a person can have. 
There is a logical sequence of cause and effect brought out 
in the pursuit of the science that trains the mind finely. The 
order in which the different branches are presented to the stu- 
dent is the result of much thought by the old masters. If a 
friend of mine proposed to become a clergyman, I should sug- 
gest that the first year's study be a course laid out by a skilful 
lawyer. The preacher who has studied law would never become 
as ex parte in his discourses as the purely theological student. 

The lawyer is aware that every statement of his will be 
criticised. Would not it be for the benefit of some clergymen 
if they were certain that their remarks would be as fully scru- 
tinized ? 

I have never held any office of importance, except county 
supervisor. I once "ran" for Representative, and came so near 
being elected that I had much difficulty in buying a hat big 
enough, for the next year or two. 

I have voted the Republican ticket most of the time ; but 
have been known as somewhat of a "kicker" and have cut the 
ticket whenever I felt inclined. 

In 1 88 1, Governor Plaisted nominated me for superin- 
tendent of schools, removing Hon. N. A. Luce. The council, 
on purely political grounds, refused to confirm the removal and 
properly retained Mr. Luce. I did not want N. A. to die, it 
would have been stupid for him to resign, but I did wish 
he might be chosen U. S. Senator. I had the assurance, if there 



PERSONAL 233 

was a vacancy, that I should he confirmed. At that time the 
Houlton Times published the following - : 
"Superintendent of Common Schools :" 

"We noticed the fact, last week, that Prof. W. S. Knowlton 
of this town, had been nominated Superintendent of Common 
Schools by the Governor. We regard this appointment as an 
excellent one. Mr. Knowlton was born in Sangerville, Piscata- 
quis county. He fitted for college at Foxcroft Academy and 
entered Waterville College in i860. After graduating he became 
principal of Monson Academy, the principal of Foxcroft Acad- 
emy. In both of these schools he won an excellent reputation 
as a teacher. Mr. Knowlton next became principal of the 
Hitchcock Free High School in Brimfield, Mass., and remained 
there until he returned to Monson, to take charge of the Acad- 
emy again. Under the supervisor law he became superintendent 
of Piscataquis county, and held the office until the law was 
repealed, and it is worthy of notice that Piscataquis county was 
almost the only one that voted solid for the law to the end. 

Six years ago, he was selected by the committee to take 
charge of Houlton Academy. This institution had recently 
passed under the control of Colby University, and, under his 
direction, the school has become one of the most flourishing 
in the State. Teaching has been his life work and the uniform 
success which has, in the past, attended his labors we feel cer- 
tain would follow him in the office to which he has been nomi- 
nated. 

Very few men, we believe, are so well fitted for the posi- 
tion of state superintendent of common schools. His knowl- 
edge of teaching and of the wants of our school system is not 
merely theoretical, but practical. He would, therefore, bring 
to the position an amount of experience that would enable him 
to do much better work than could otherwise be possible. It is 
worthy of mention too, that he has a breadth of culture that 
few men possess, being a fine scholar, a first-class teacher and 
a good public speaker. We, therefore, sincerely hope that, for 



234 THE 0LD SCHOOLMASTER 

the sake of our schools, Mr. Knowlton may be confirmed in 
the position to which he has been nominated by the Governor." 

BACCALAUREATE SERMON. 

"Every man in his chamber of imagery." — Ezekiel 8 ; 23. 

The prophet of the Lord was in spirit on the first day of the 
week when the spirit of the Lord led him away to the temple 
at Jerusalem and leading him to the wall commanded him 
to dig in the wall. He did so and discovered a hole in the wall. 
The angel commanded him to still continue to dig. Then a door 
appeared and the prophet went in and stood in a chamber hidden 
in the secret recesses of the temple. Then said the angel, "Oh 
son of man, seest thou what they do, every man in the chamber 
of his imagery;" The prophet looked, and behold, he saw the 
priests and elders, whose duty it was to offer incense to the God 
of Israel and worship the Almighty, every man with a censer 
in his hand offering incense to the idols he had set up and paying 
his adoration to them. Here were those men with door shut, 
every trace of secret entrance obliterated. There in the dark, 
though no eye saw and no ear heard ; but the eye of the Lord 
penetrated that dark recess and revealed all the secret wicked- 
ness of that chamber. Those men had this chamber where they 
paid adoration to the secret idols of their selection. There they 
worshiped, there they loved and adored and became assimilated 
to the very gods they themselves had selected or created. 

So has every man today a chamber of imagery, where in 
secret he goes and communes with that secret chamber of the 
soul. From that chamber he comes and mingles with men, 
with the incense of that secret chamber still pervading every 
act and thought. When do men enter this chamber? At all 
hours and in all places. Sometimes in the crowded congrega- 
tion the vacant eye shows that one hearer, at least, is no longer 
conscious of his present surroundings, but has floated away to 
his ideal world, and is dwelling upon scenes the clergyman knows 
not of. At the evening hour, when alone, almost before he is 



PERSONAL 235 

aware, he stands in his chamber with censer in hand and is wor- 
shiping some idol that he loves. Everyone, I repeat, has this 
chamber, and there are formed the deepest loves of the heart. 
It is there that temptation first allures and captivates ; it is there 
that the great resolves are formed that lead to noble and holy 
lives. There ideal associates are cherished whose counterfeits 
we seek in practical life. Every young man especially spends 
some moments each day as he stands in his chamber of 
imagery. Into that chamber he goes, shuts the door and fancies 
the world will never know to what god he sacrifices. Perhaps 
he ought to be elsewhere, should be in the holy temple of Jeho- 
vah, ought to be doing some duty for humanity, filling some 
position assigned by virtue of his condition, but all these he 
neglects or ignores and flees away in soul to his secret chamber 
and worships. 

Into that secret chamber of the soul come the silent influ- 
ences that operate upon the heart and paint upon the walls the 
scenes, beauties and inducements that each advocates. Ambi- 
tion, remorseless ambition, that spirit that led the Israelites to 
ask for a king, that led Napoleon Bonaparte to swim vast seas 
of slaughter that his insatiate thirst for power might in some 
degree be satiated, that leads men today to seek power, position, 
wealth, regardless of the rights of others. — ambition comes 
and paints upon the walls in gorgeous coloring, the glorious 
triumphs and magnificent victories the daring may achieve. 

The dead and dying are not represented, the broken hearts 
are not seen, the dying groans not heard, only the peans of 
victory swell out upon the air. The young man sits in his cham- 
ber of imagery and gazes upon these lurid pictures. He is at 
first, perhaps, shocked at the delineation upon the wall. Con- 
science reproves, mercy pleads and justice cries in sternest 
accents, but yet ambition in bright lines, more glorious scenes 
portray, weaker and weaker grows the reproval of conscience 
and the voice is drowned in the shouts of victory till at last 
the surrender is won, and the man stands in his chamber of 



236 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

imagery with his censer in his hands, worshiping the ideal pictures 
upon the walls. There in that secret chamber, the resolves are 
formed which are executed in practical life. Into that chamber 
comes an inordinate love of wealth, beautiful houses with brown 
stone fronts, horses and carriages, bank stock and bonds are 
painted upon the walls, and how alluring are they ! All the re- 
finements of life that wealth can bring, luxury can furnish, 
every aesthetic taste fully satisfied, beautiful scenes of earth visit- 
ed, — all these pictures are thrown upon the screen where mel- 
lowed light softly falls. What young man is not allured by 
such magnificent promises? The sleepless nights of anxiety, 
the clouds that so often darken the horizon are not painted in 
the picture. The manhood lost that wealth may be gained, a 
soul bartered for dollars ; conscience violated that desire may 
prevail, — all these are in the background overshadowed by the 
halo from the inviting. The censer stands before the longing 
eyes of the young man, pondering, hesitating he stands, desir- 
ing the results, but lamenting the sacrifice. At length when 
the heart is ready, the hand grasps the censer and adoration is 
paid to the ideal, and out among men, disregarding every moral 
obligation, burying manhood under stocks and bonds, he starts 
on a course of "frenzied finance" which, has he the ability and 
fortune favors, will carry him to the boulevard that leads to 
castles and chateaux and secures the stocks and bonds. 

There are many haunted houses in this land of ours. Stalk- 
ing through the halls and corridors are the ghosts of happiness 
that die when the first dishonest dollar was obtained, the appar- 
ition of peace that passed out when unholy desire entered. 

Into that chamber hypocrisy slinks with smiling, smirk- 
ing face and paints her fancies there. The front view is fascinat- 
ing in the extreme. The front is only shown. Like many an 
imposing structure standing upon streets, the front facade but 
hides the insignificant house in the rear. Strange as it may 
seem so many stand before that wall with censer in hand and pay 
their heart's devotion to the false, the hollow, the wicked, and so 



PERSONAL 237 

in fancy's flights they build whited sepulchers and call them 
mansions fair. Among men these idolators live and act accord- 
ing to their ideals, and leave the world worse when life's course 
is over, with halting steps and paints her pictures upon the wall, 
Sloth comes, couches for repose, chairs of ease and shady lanes 
are the pictures offered. Why tire the muscles and weary the 
brain and climb mountains when sunny plains stretch invitingly 
from horizon to horizon? In dulcet tones she sighs, "A little 
more sleep, a little more folding of the hands in sleep." Why 
toil and agonize for riches that have wings and fly away? Why 
weary the brain with fatiguing thought? Why recognize per- 
sistent duty demanding labor? Why listen to that voice within 
calling to lofty thought and glorious deeds? And the indo- 
lent suggard with half filled censer wearily pays his devotion 
to idleness and sleep. Among men he becomes the reality he 
desires to be in his chamber of thought. 

Sensual pleasure pictures upon the wall scenes upon which 
the novice gazes at first with a blush of shame inherited from 
the mother's soul, but anon those scenes seem less hideous and 
at length attract, allure and fascinate. 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mein, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen. 

But seen too oft, familiar with his face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Here it is in the secret chamber of desire that the reckless, 
dissolute youth commences the life of dissipation and disgrace. 
Bright, glowing pictures allure and captivate in the medita- 
tion hour. At this quiet hour when no human eye can see, 
no ear can hear, the young man sits and thinks over the scenes 
of the day. He recalls the glowing accounts given by his com- 
panions of the good times they have indulged in, reviews the 
scenes they have pictured over, and feasts his soul upon the ideal 
engagements he has conjured up before himself. He sees but 
one side of it all, calls not up before his vision, health ruined, 
reputation gone, friends in despair, life wasted. He only sees 



238 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

what he wants to see, and when he becomes in love with these 
he goes out into the world and plunges into the actual with all 
the disastrous results following. And thus the whole cata- 
logue of human passions array themselves in that chamber of 
imagery. 

But these are not the only visitors to that chamber. The 
better elements of the human soul present themselves and plead 
for recognition. True ambition, a desire to excel comes to the 
young in his meditation hour and paints on the walls names of 
men and women whose fame will never die. These are written 
high on the walls, enveloped in glory true and undying. As he 
gazes upon these, a desire arises to write his name along beside 
them, to so live that all coming ages will remember the name 
made famous, and which will brighter grow as time passes on. 
When these illustrations have stimulated the soul to earnest 
desire, then begins a course in life whose consummation is the 
highest possible attainment. Then every hindrance is laid aside, 
weak indulgences he no longer regards, trivial considerations 
receive no attention, all small desires lie grovelling in the dust, 
one grand, over-mastering purpose animates the soul, — to make 
life something grand, something honorable, something that will 
compel all coming time to recognize and weave into precepts and 
copy as models. 

Purity dressed in garments of snow with modest mein and 
downcast eye, with brow serene and step made firm by self- 
consciousness, paints on the wall the lovely chaste portraits that 
so resemble the pictures of the Madonna, and she whispers, 
"These, and these alone, you must worship, O young man, these, 
and these alone, O dear young lady, you must dare even think 
about." No gaudy colors plant there their brazen effrontery 
about the pictures that Purity paints upon the canvas. But they 
are not attractive. There is inherent in the heart an apprecia- 
tion of all that is pure and beautiful and good before the taste 
becomes violated and the desires depraved. If only the young 
could learn to love the pure with an actual emotion while the 



PERSONAL 239 

God given appreciation is active, if he pays his adoration at 
that altar, if he burns in his censer the purest spices and the 
frankincense of an unpolluted heart, he will never fail amid the 
most fascinating temptations ; but that love must be as strong, 
real and active as a desire for gross things can be. Oftimes a 
toleration is mistaken for a love. A half-hearted approval never 
leads to forcible acts. 

On that wall are painted portraits of men and women who 
have laid aside every selfish thought and desire, and worked 
together with God for the uplifting of society, the amelioration 
of suffering. 

Into the chamber of silent thought comes the "still, small 
voice," pleading for a better life, higher motives, purer thought. 
Away from the noise of the busy world, separated from influ- 
ences that have drowned that voice, its power is most potent. 

In the heart can be heard the familiar tones of a mother's 
prayer, falling, as it seems, from her home above, pleading 
with her prodigal boy. Gently knocking at that door ever 
stands the Christ, and asks to come in, pleads to come in. 
When allowed that to do, what glorious pictures are painted 
on the walls ! The cross is there to be sure, but a halo of 
glory illuminates it. Jesus of Nazareth hung upon that cross. 
Through the cross, life and salvation came to the world ; by 
means of the cross, humanity dies to sin, and receives "life more 
abundantly." By the crosses of life, character is perfected ; 
the heart enlarged and life made worth living. 

But other pictures are there : A glorious life spent in the 
service of God, spent in doing good among men, a life in which 
every motive, thought and desire are prompted by the spirit of 
God. Other scenes are portrayed. Ambition robbed of all 
selfishness finds its highest conception realized in full develop- 
ment, emblazoned with undying deeds that Heaven can bless, 
a Christianized intellect, every fond hope and purpose purified 
and made clean. 



240 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



All these things are on the wall, and more than that, "A 
home in Heaven," the house of many mansions, the golden 
streets and pearly gates ; a life with God, where the immortal 
soul, with its almost infinite longings, shall have opportunity to 
study, investigate, to know ; a home where all is pure, beautiful 
and incorruptible ; where friend shall see the heart of friend ; 
where partings can never be, where all that an infinite God can 
do for the perfection of human happiness is done. 

As the young man gazes upon these scenes, and listens to 
that pleading voice, he can but feel an impulse to accept at once ; 
but there are other pictures upon that wall, other voices call, 
the voice of the Siren, in dulcet tones, is heard, calling to other 
scenes. He hesitates, thinks, meditates, stands with censer in 
hand, almost distracted ; but right there, in that secret chamber, 
the decision will be made ; a decision that nor time nor eternity 
will be able to change. In this secret retreat are the issues of 
life and death. 

O young man, young woman, as you sit alone in your 
chamber, and fashion for yourself an ideal life; as you review 
the pleasures of the day, and contemplate the duties of life, 
as you appreciate the temptations that surround you, fix your 
eye on the Christ on the cross, and open the heart to the pleading 
voice calling to better things. Close the eye to every scene not 
approved of Christ, not embraced within the landscape of his 
portraiture. 

CONTRIBUTED FOR ALBUMS. 

Several of the students have sent me a contribution from 
albums in which I had written. I ought to state that two or 
three of these contributions were written when I was a young 
man. 

Found in many albums. 
"You'll not forget, when this you see, 
That this is my chirography." 



PERSONAL 241 

To . ilice. 
Alice, in your eyes I see, 
Love supreme, and coquetry, 
Give to me the first and best. 
Let the world take all the rest. 

To Lucia Rose. 
Be a white rose, pure and neat, 
Be a red rose, blushing sweet, 
Every path in life adorn. 
Be a rose without a thorn. 

To Miss Elloisc Baglcy. 
Elloise, 
Busy bees 

Honey find in flower or trees. 
Thus may you 
Ever do, 
Find in all things something true. 

On receiving a box of grapes as a philopena present from 
Miss Ada Staples : 

Accept my thanks, Miss Ada S. 
Payment in full I now confess. 
The sweetness of the grapes, methought. 
Was borrowed from the hand that brought. 

To Mary. 
Of kind words be never chary. 
Let your smiles be frequent, very ; 
When you're sad or when you're merry, 
Be perfection, then be Mary. 

A PRAYER TO PROF. OSLER. 
Dr. Osier said that a man at sixty ought to be chloroformed. 
My dear Professor, if you can. 
Please lengthen out our earthly span. 



We've passed the sixty milestone by, 
With step still firm and undimmed eye. 



16 



242 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

Can swing the scythe like long ago, 
Can handle axe, or plow, or hoe. 

Can measure mountains, moon, or star, 
Can solve the tough hyperbola. 

Of steak or pie can eat our fill, 

With Edwards reason on "Free Will." 

Can Plato read and Socrates, 

And "square the circle," at our ease. 

We still would stem the heat and storm, 
We do not want your "chloroform." 

We think it hard to leave the track 
Because that stupid almanac, 

Says we were born in thirty-nine, 
And must with gloomy Pluto dine. 

We have a nag that's twenty-four, 
We want to drive that nag some more. 

No man of twenty, none but us, 
Can drive that fierce Bucephalus. 

Our mooley cow, though gaunt and lean, 
Makes butter still, at "sweet sixteen." 

No "kid" of forty ever born 

Can milk that cow with "crumpled horn." 

And our old dog, though blind of eye, 
Still wags his tail, as we pass by. 

Shall we lie silent in the vale, 

While that old dog still wags his tail? 

We have a wife, less old than we, 
Shall she a youthful widow be, 

And soon her sable plumage burn, 
While we lie senseless in the urn, 

And grace the home of some young host, 
That only forty years can boast? 



PERSONAL 243 

My dear Professor, don't you feel, 

The world sometimes gets tired of "veal," 

And, like St. Paul, "for stomach's sake," 
Wants, now and then, a slice of steak, 

Where age and sweetness nicely join, 
Or juicy roast of tenderloin? 

Go east, Professor, o'er the wave, 
And shed a tear at Gladstone's grave. 

Go east, Professor, far away, 
And let me live my little day. 

When "mal de mer" your stomach's on, 
Then take your dose of "chloroform." 

AN IDYL. 

THE KISS AT PALMER. 

I stood, one day, on the depot steps 

With lawyer, priest and farmer. 
And my heart was stirred to its lowest depths, 

In the beautiful town of Palmer. 

Close by my side stood a bright-eyed Miss, 

No statue of Juno was calmer ; 
And the cruel engine began to hiss 

Farewell to that girl at Palmer. 

Her eyes were bright as Venus at night. 

And her heart, through their lashes, bewildered with flashes. 
And her sunshiny smile would a Cato beguile; 

With voice soft and fine as the breeze in the pine. 

We'd loved, in a sort of Platonic way, 

I and my exquisite charmer, 
But part we must, forever and aye. 

In that terrible town of Palmer. 

My tongue was tied by a nameless spell ; 

I prayed that nothing would harm her ; 
And I gave my hand, in a silent farewell, 

In that hopeless town of Palmer. 



244 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

She pressed my hand, O, joy! 0, bliss! 

The very air grew balm'er, 
And with sweetest lips gave me a kiss 

In the glorified town of Palmer. 

The world seemed changed in a moment's time, 
The Millenium Dawn seemed nigher ; 

That engine, grim with soot and rime, 
Elijah's chariot of fire. 

I felt like the Peri, when freed from sin, 

She saw the gates of Aiden 
Open wide to let her in, 

With that precious tear-drop laden. 

That gloomy station, rough and brown, 

Became a mansion, fair. 
And the Poor House over in Monson Town, 

Grand castles in the air. 

Every pebble seemed a precious gem, 

To the eyes of the Holy Palmer, 
As he walked the streets of Jerusalem ; 

And I the streets of Palmer. 

I'm a grandsire now, with a child by my side, 
And the passions of life have grown calmer; 

But I'll never forget till eveningtide, 
That girl and that kiss, at Palmer ! 

THE PARSON'S EXCHANGE. 

One evening Cupid took a stroll. 
And brought his bow along; 

He lighted on a grassy knoll 
And hummed a little song. 
"The parson is writing his sermon," said he, 
"What do you think his text can be? 
I'll sit me down on the window sill 
And watch the flight of his gray goose quill. 
Some musty old thought on the duty of man, 
How Eden was lost and the terrible ban — 
O! pshaw! parson, now I'll give you a line 
That serves as a text for all sermons of mine." 



PERSONAL 245 

And the mind of the parson was thrilled through and through, 

And his duty he saw in a light that was new. 

And he heard his heart beat in ecstatic surprise 

As a text flashed forth as if from the skies. 

" 'Love ye one another,' " he repeated o'er and o'er. 

" 'Love ye one another.' That I do, and more." 

But the sermon still lingered, his forehead grew hot, 

No spiritual light, no answering thought, 

But the odors of Eden seemed filling the room. 

He Paradise saw with lilies in bloom, 

And angels with garlands of flowers 

Seemed beckoning on to perennial bowers. 

The parson grew frantic. "I'll write it," he cried, 

"Or die the dire death that the martyrs have died. 

What power can it be that is thrilling me so?" 

He then heard the twang of the bright silver bow, 

And the arrow sped straight his corselet between, 

And a sweet voice whispered "Charlene, Charlene." 

A blush of surprise on the parson's face broke; 

He thought his own heart its secret had spoke. 

And visions he saw more precious, I ween, 

Than ever before by mortals were seen. 

Except by a lover — well you and I know 

Just how it was, in the sweet long ago. 

But the sermon stopped there, it couldn't be done, 

And Cupid sat smiling, enjoying the fun. 

He wrestled, like Jacob, with angels unseen. 

But the angel that conquered was the charming Charlene. 

"It's of no use." he cried. "My thoughts they will range. 

It cannot be done. I'll have an exchange." 

Though the highway was rough and the wintry air keen, 

He flew like a dove to the home of Charlene. 

'Twas the same old story, it never will change ; 

Heart spoke unto heart, they made an exchange. 

Influenced by the imperative demand of former pupils of 
Houlton Academy, I take great pleasure in immortalizing - this 
book by presenting to my readers W. H. Parker's Byronic poem 
published in those happy days. 



24 6 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



POETRY. 

Come, friends, I pray, and listen 

While to you I do relate 
A few words concerning one 

With whom we often meet. 

"Tis of a brave and gallant youth, 

Well known unto us all, 
His stature 'tis not great, 

And some might call him small. 

His name is a familiar one, 

But if you cannot guess, 
I may as well tell it. 

His name is W. J. Betts. 

He is studious and industrious 

As ever was a bee, 
And when he leaves our school he's going 

At travelling with apple trees. 

He's very fond of the ladies, 

As it's natural for to be; 
And when he has one by his side 

He seems so full of glee. 

But for one he has a special love, 

As often is the case ; 
She's tall and young and sprightly, 

But has a freckled face. 

This young Miss is very tall, 

As before I did relate ; 
In order for to see her face 

He has to look up straight. 

And now I'm drawing to a close, 

I must bid my friends adieu. 
And all the rest of his worthy acts 

I will simply leave with you. 

But his loved one's conduct toward him 
The hardest heart might touch ; 

She cares so little for him, 
While he loves her so much. 



PERSONAL 247 

But I must leave the gloomy scene 

And another course pursue, 
So I will quietly drop my pen 

And bid you all "adieu." 

—IV. H. Parker. 

A PAPER ON ORDER. 

More teachers fail on account of an inability to govern a 
school than by any other means. They do not understand that 
there is science in the governing of a school. One fact must be 
admitted at once; that some are "born to command." But even 
those have a system by which they work. The very first prin- 
ciple to learn in governing a room-full of scholars is strategy. 
The teacher must so plan that the least amount of force possible 
be called into action. To explain ; every class must sit on the 
recitation seat in the order in which they come from their seats 
in the schoolroom. No class should ever, in the smallest school, 
come into the floor except in regular order, one pupil following 
another ; then, when all are before the recitation seat, they should 
all be seated at once, by the tap of the bell. Every scholar should 
always occupy the same position in the same recitation, through 
the term. 

The class should be dismissed in the way they are 
seated, by a tap of the bell calling them up, another tap sends 
them to their seats, where they stand till the bell seats them. 

No communication should be allowed in the class, and 
nearly all text books should be left at the seats. No geographies 
should be carried into the class. The teacher should carefully 
notice those in the class who are inattentive, and without directly 
telling them the reason, call upon them the most frequently to 
recite. They will see the point very soon. Every teacher should 
tell the pupils, at the beginning of the term, that he will seat the 
pupils where he thinks it best for all concerned, and should make 
such changes as he thinks best. 

The school should march out at recess and, when they come 
in, stand by the seat till seated. They must, by all means, be 



248 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

required to come in immediately when the bell rings and that bell 
should only ring a stroke or two. I advise every teacher to 
strictly enforce this suggestion. Do not ring the bell five min- 
utes, or one minute, but strike it so it can be heard and insist that 
all, large and small, shall come in at once. If this is required at 
the beginning of the term rigidly, it will save very much trouble 
and assist in other matters of discipline. 

When I was county supervisor of schools, in a certain town 
was a schoolhouse so located that the pupils could run around 
it. One day I drove along by the house and saw half a dozen 
scholars sprinting around that house with the teacher behind 
them. I thought they were in sport and stopped to watch the 
fun, but soon I noticed that, one by one, the pupils dodged into 
the schoolhouse and, at last, all went in, followed by the teacher. 
I learned that was the usual program every recess. It was good 
exercise for the legs, but not a brain developing exercise. 

The water pail is a great source of disturbance in the school 
room and I am inclined to think it ought to be excluded, but per- 
haps it is not wise to do so, as so many think that children need 
to drink every half hour. It is an unhealthy and pernicious 
habit, and ought to be abolished. Water that has stood an hour 
in the schoolroom is unfit to drink at all. If the teacher must 
have the water pail, let the scholars "be watered" at regular 
intervals, in perfect order, and suspend all other exercises. 

All punishment should follow the offence, as a rule. A 
pupil caught in the act of disobedience recognizes that he is 
wrong, and deserves punishment. If he receives it then and 
there, a reformation usually follows. But if that pupil is told at 
ten o'clock that at the close of school he is to receive punishment, 
he thinks the matter over during the day, talks about it with the 
pupils, and by night comes to the conclusion that the offence 
does not justify punishment. So, when it is administered, it 
leads, not to repentance, but to stubbornness. 

Of course, there may be instances where it may be better to 
defer. 



PERSONAL 249 

That teacher who publicly proclaims that he never punishes, 
had better change his business. My rule is — punish if I must, — 
but show by example that the minimum quantity only is needed. 
I have never whipped a pupil or used a ferule. I have shown a 
few that this world revolves very rapidly sometimes ; I have 
deprived them of privileges, and subjected them to mortifica- 
tions; but I always informed the superintendent and pupils that 
I should whip them, if I thought best, and they deserved it. 

Whispering is the source of most of the disorder in a school 
room. I suppose there never was a school where there was not 
some, but it should be reduced to the smallest degree possible. 
It is often said, "Gain the love of the pupils, and there will be no 
trouble." A moment's thought will show that this alone will not 
maintain good order. Johnnie loves his mother better than he 
can his teacher, yet he needs his mother's slipper quite often. 
The teacher should seek to gain the love of the pupil, but not by 
extraneous means. His work for the boy, his interest in his 
studies, will gain recognition, and love follows. Little and big 
folks very soon learn to care for those wdio sacrifice for them. 
It is very difficult to always decide just how familiar one can be 
with the pupil. My rule is : be friendly, pleasant, kindly, at 
recess, noon, and all times out of school hours, but never 
familiar. Never argue, dispute, nor allow them to criticize any 
act of yours done in the schoolroom. I never ask much of them 
out of school hours. I would ask a boy to get a pail of water 
in school hours ; but would get it myself at noon. 

I always say "please" to everyone in ordinary intercourse, 
in school hours, which serves as a request ; when that "please" 
is not used, the request becomes a demand. A private talk is 
very effective with many pupils, useless with others ; nay, harm- 
ful. One experiment will determine. 

Should a pupil ever be expelled? Certainly. When it is 
for the well-being of the great whole that one pupil should no 
longer absorb three times as much of the time and energy of the 



250 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



teacher as he deserves, and shows, on his part, no disposition to 
reform, let him depart, for the benefit of the rest. 

The best way to manage those restless, idle, nervous little 
folks is to keep them busy about something the teacher suggests, 
and not what they choose. They must learn that their wills 
must, for the time being, be subjected to the teacher's. 

The most vexatious pupil of all is that contemptible coward 
who, every day, will stop just short of punishment. At last, the 
teacher can stand it no longer, and punishes the pupil, not for the 
overt act, but for the misdemeanors of the whole week. The 
boy goes home and reports the punishment as given for the last 
act of his. His parents and the school committee think the sin 
was trivial and the punishment too severe. They do not know 
the many hours of care and perplexity that same boy has caused 
that long-suffering teacher. 

Some teachers think it brutal to punish a pupil. If punish- 
ment be administered in a proper spirit, there is nothing brutal 
about it. The teacher administers that punishment, impelled by 
duty, not by a love of it, and no one is made worse by doing 
duty. The pupil who is made to obey and be decent is certainly 
less of a brute than before. But, of course, the highest ambition 
of the teacher should be to so interest the pupils in their studies, 
and in him, that an interest will arise which will predestinate 
good order and good work. This may be done, in most cases. 

To superintendents I make an earnest appeal. In all the 
primary schools, let more time be given to reading, spelling, and 
writing. The Almighty fixed the time in which the mind of a 
child can best do certain things. No human decree can change 
that order. Children can learn to memorize readily, and should 
be taught to do so. They don't stop to consider why a thing is 
so ; then take advantage of that fact and teach spelling and read- 
ing at that unreasoning age. The spelling and pronunciation of 
English is, for the most part, devoid of all reasoning process. 
All pupils less than ten years old should read four times every 
day, and spell as many. They should write every day. "But," 



PERSONAL 251 

you say, "there is not time." Take time. Let the child learn the 
addition and multiplication tables. He can do it, and should do 
so, both for profit and mental discipline ; and let his time-absorb- 
ing "number-work" be in abeyance till his reasoning faculties 
are developed somewhat. Language lessons are all right at the 
proper time, but should not, at an early age, absorb too much 
time. Many an hour is wasted on children in that exercise, 
because they are too young to appreciate what is taught. When 
the child is ten years old, he should be taught simple grammar, 
both orally, and from a book. Then should commence his real 
mathematical education. 

In three or four years the boy will learn all the arithmetic he 
needs. He will learn more at seventeen in one year, than in two 
at twelve or thirteen. I have taught men of thirty arithmetic 
easily ; but I could not teach them grammar or reading or 
spelling. 

Another point interests me very much, the matter of pro- 
motion. In every school of fifty, there are, at least, five or six 
who have no especial mathematical ability. These pupils, at the 
end of the year, fail to pass and hence are retained another year 
in the same grade. Many of these drop out of school, and those 
that remain are idle half of the time and become mischievous. 
In my opinion, such pupils should be allowed to go on, and a 
course should be adopted, fitted to their conditions. This may 
lay some additional burdens on the teacher, but the effort is worth 
the while. Some of the really brightest boys and girls I ever 
knew, have been pupils of the kind mentioned. The world would 
lose much should they drop out of school at an early age. They 
could have some new study assigned, or be required to do extra 
work in the prescribed course and leave out the mathematics. 

Suppose the pupil be thirteen, and cannot pass in arithmetic. 
That pupil may go on in algebra all right, and, when he is older, 
he very likely will accomplish the arithmetic readily. 

A word about supplementary reading. I believe in prac- 
ticing a class in reading all that is possible, but the book should 



252 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



be a drill book. There should be a variety in it, and not simply 
a continuous story. No pupils become good readers without 
drill in all forms of reading. 

Let the bad boy suffer, and not the teacher. The same 
remarks apply to the other parties mentioned. 

But the teacher must, nevertheless, sacrifice something. 
This sacrifice must be a voluntary one. There are pleasures and 
social enjoyments which are his by right; but these should never 
so absorb his interest as to diminish faithful work in the school- 
room. There cannot be a divided love and interest when that 
love is intensely active. When the love is cold and dormant one 
could teach in a listless way, and spend half the night in pleas- 
ure ; but when pleasure becomes a passion, the whole stream of 
emotions runs in that direction, and the teaching will be totally 
insipid. 






CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SERMON ON INVITATION OF GRADUATING CLASS OF CARIBOU 
HIGH SCHOOL. 

"I create new heavens and new earth." Isaiah, 65 ; 17. 

In the beginning God created. The heavens were created 
and the earth was put into form. That form was not a fixed 
one. Doubtless this earth of ours once consisted of a mass of 
gases held by affinity in a common mass and by centripetal force 
moulded into a spherical form. In that gaseous world were 
included every element that now forms a constituent part of 
the earth as it exists today. The gases parting with a certain 
amount of heat became liquid ; then the earth became a new 
one in appearance though not a new atom had been created. 
The liquid, under the influence of fixed law, transformed itself 
into a solid and a new earth appeared, the same in elements, 
but new in form. But the earth was not yet ready for human 
occupancy. Countless ages must be consumed before God's 
transforming work was done. At length amid the beauties 
of Paradise, God's crowning creation looked out upon a new 
earth, fitted for the high development of man. 

For many ages, doubtless, man saw no changes in the 
natural world around him save that which the seasons bring. 
Certain phenomena were noticed year after year but were little 
understood. In course of time the laws appertaining to the phy- 
sical world began to be understood, then a new earth appeared ; 
the same in reality, but better understood. Old in form but 
new in force; old in elements but new in combination. In fine, 



^54 



THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 



the earth is never just the same in form and appearance every 
day, sun, heat and storm, chemical affinity and external forces 
are forever producing new forms and combinations hitherto 
unknown, and still it is the same earth that God created in the 
beginning. 

As man came to use the forces of nature he discovered 
somje were easily understood and others past finding out. He 
could use these forces but could not fathom the deep mysteries 
of their existence. 

Man discovered also that there were many phenom- 
ena which he could not use. Every day he was aware that nat- 
ural laws were operating around him that were as far beyond 
his comprehension as was the divine Author of those laws. 
One by one these laws have been understood and subjected 
to the use of man. The force of gravity, the expansive power 
of water, the terrible explosive force of nitrogenous combina- 
tions and many others have changed the social relations of hu- 
manity and made civilization possible. A new earth has ap- 
peared infinitely superior to the one the prophets saw and under- 
stood. Mother earth then seemed surcharged with forces that 
rent her in twain by earthquake shocks engulfing puny man in 
hopeless ruin. The sky seemed but the depository of hail 
and snow and the hiding place of the terrible thunder bolt, 
whose voice alone caused the face to blanch with fear. Today 
she is Mother earth indeed, holding in her bosom the precious 
metals and gems that delight humanity, concealing but lightly 
the fuel for our warmth, force for our machinery and a thou- 
sand gifts heretofore unknown. The very poisons by whose 
fiat mjan once died now give health and vigor; and that awe 
inspiring voice from the sky, once so terrible, now becoming 
translatable, is simply the concentrated echo of the trolley car 
and dynamo. It is all the same in God's sight, but to us a new 
earth. 

"I create new heavens." Perhaps some violence is done 
to the text in the way the word "heavens" will be used in this 



SERMON TO GRADUATING CLASS 255 

discourse, but yet we think it may fairly be used to designate 
our conception of the future abode of man. The earth is his 
present abode. By the term "heaven" we designate in general 
his abode after his disappearance as a living, acting being on 
earth. 

God made the earth man's present habitation. God made 
heaven man's future abode. God's creative power stopped 
when the elements composing the earth were finished, so heaven 
was finished when God made it. The earth we see and study, — 
heaven we believe in and see by faith, and as the Holy Book 
says, I, God, create new earth, so I, God, create for man new 
conceptions of heaven. The heaven of our fathers is not 
today our heaven, though in God's sight the same forever, and 
as man's conception of heaven changes, it follows that our ideas 
change in regard to what is requisite for that heaven. But it 
may be urged man cannot change these things, God only can. 
True, but it is God who makes all these changes, using man 
sometinues as an agent or co-worker. The theme led directly 
to a discussion of a somewhat difficult subject, — progressive 
theology. Difficult, because erroneous premises were assumed 
and hence wrong conclusions reached. All things in God's 
world are progressive, his creation was first the living plant, at 
length the giant oak and lofty pine, — at first the uncouth monster 
of the early ages, those were superceded by the graceful, athletic 
animals of later days. Each were necessary in his time and con- 
dition. The immur millions of ants were necessary, so were the 
ant-eaters, equally so the carnivorous anmals to destroy the 
same. So in teaching man and leading him up to his real life, 
God works in progressive ways and gradually leads from higher 
to higher till the summit is reached. Now understand me here. 
God never changes, not a natural law is ever changed or annulled. 
Abstract right as God sees it never changes. But our concep- 
tion of right may change. The application of moral law may 
change; expediency may change. What was once right may 
become decidedly wrong. The applications of prohibitions may 



256 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

be right in one age and wrong in another. Now what our con- 
ceptions of the future state are must have a bearing upon our 
moral conduct and religious life here. In fact one can write 
a history of civilization and of culture by simply consulting the 
recorded conceptions man has of the future. In Homeric days 
the poets conceived that the heroes passed to the Plutonian 
regions with all their scars, human resentments, their horses 
and dogs. The wicked were punished by physical tortures and 
bodily pain. 

That conception plainly showed the ethical condition exist- 
ing among men. It was all physical ; the spiritual hardly ex- 
isted in their conception. In Virgil, the heroes still had these 
scars, but they were scars impressed upon a spiritual body. 
The people now began to recognize a spiritual existence here 
on earth. In Dante there was pictured a heaven from which 
all baser things are banished, but all the loves, resentments, jeal- 
ousies of earth were reproduced. A great advance has been 
made in civilization and spiritual pleasures and sorrows dis- 
placed the love and hate of the physical life which had pre- 
vailed in former days. In Milton's "Paradise Lost," we have a 
pen picture of a purely spiritual heaven. All the earth is left 
entombed with the physical body — all human affection, every 
earthly hope and ambition were gone. Man's only employment, 
joy, desire, was to praise God for the great boon of salvation. 
The conception of Milton fairly illustrated the puritanical 
thought of the day. Butler, a hundred years later, voiced 
modern thought in conceiving heaven as a spiritual existence 
where all the surrounding influence, atmosphere, the Divine 
presence brings all into harmony, where nothing but purity can 
exist, where God's will will be man's desire, where those im- 
mortal longings that rob the eyelids of sleep while vainly seek- 
ing satiety here on earth, will have opportunity to study, admire 
and in humble reverence glorify the all-glorious Jehovah, who 
spoke and it was done. In truth the Christ had made salva- 
tion possible. 



SERMON TO GRADUATING CLASS 257 

In this ethical aye the spiritual, the ethical is the only rec- 
ognized part of man worthy of consideration. The body is hut 
a temple in which the man lives. Our conception now is that 
not a noble attribute of the soul can die. A love for the beauti- 
ful here on earth will make the pure life all the more enjoyable 
where all things must be charming. A love for humanity here 
on earth will find eternal joy in realizing the felicity of the in- 
numerable multitude in the many mansions. A love for par- 
ents or child, that made all those places of life sublime, must 
find its fulfillment where that love can render perfection. That 
hungering after knowledge that wearies the brain in unsatis- 
fying researchings must be satisfied where God has prepared 
a perfect habitation. Of course the first, the great, the all-ab- 
sorbing emotion of the soul will be to give glory and honor 
and adoration to God the Father for his unnumbered blessings, 
mercy and love, and thanksgiving and praise to the Christ who 
hath made heaven ours. 

\Ye have no very definite description of Heaven in the 
Bible, but are told that God is there. God the Almighty, the 
pure, the holy, the just, our Father. Christ told the world that 
there were mansions prepared for those who are pure in heart 
and love God, Christ will be there. 

John saw the Holy City with its streets pure as gold, its 
gates as imperishable as precious gems, and heard the uncounted 
millions sing songs of praise to God the Almighty and to the 
Lamb who hath redeemed us. But whv did not Christ coming 
from that blessed abode fully describe it to an anxious world? 
Evidently for the very reason already hinted. Heaven must 
forever remain to us while on earth as a conception inherited 
from our Father in Heaven. That conception must change as 
man changes, as civilization advances. 

Now civilization can only become possible where Christian- 
ity prevails, hence the conception of Heaven that man enter- 
tains is the direct result of the same Christianity. Granted this 
proposition, — the conclusion naturally follows that our concep- 
17 



25 g THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

tion of Heaven must become grander as the state of society 
becomes more elevated. At some periods in the history of the 
church, piety consisted chiefly in faithfully adhering to the 
dogmas of the church. When that idea prevailed the concep- 
tion of Heaven must have been a place where the man of prayer, 
the martyr and the faithful defender of the faith would receive 
his reward. 

Today all is changed. There is one great theme absorb- 
ing the soul of the thinking world ; who was Christ, and what did 
he do and teach? The answer comes breathed forth from the 
soul of hungering humanity that he was the Incarnate Son of 
God ; that he lived among men, loved humanity, healed the sick 
and taught men how to live and how to die. Christianity today 
consists in being Christlike and obeying his commandments and 
following his example. Christ recognized all as offsprings of 
the common Father. To be Christlike is to realize that every 
man has an immortal soul for whom Christ died, and to feel a 
brother's love for every one needy, to weep with those that weep 
and rejoice with those that rejoice. Heaven, to a man thus 
feeling, must seem but the perfect realization of what he has tried 
to realize on earth, and he knows that the more he understands 
God's laws written upon every leaf of nature's unsealed book, 
the more he delves into the deep mines of human researches, 
the more he discourses truth and beauty in all created things, 
the more he understands God's moral laws. 

If then a Christian life here on earth becomes broader, 
grander and more useful the wiser man becomes, it follows that 
a conceived heaven must present the opportunity for gratifying 
the undying thirst in the human soul to know, to study, to in- 
vestigate and understand. This is the new heaven only in our 
conception. If the reverent being standing on some lofty moun- 
tain with soul surcharged with admiration while viewing the 
glorious scenery of nature, lifts up his heart and voice in praise 
to the Almighty God, who could so create, how much loftier 
must be that hymn of praise, when with spiritual body this same 



SERMON TO GRADUATIN CLASS 259 

being, having listened to the "Song of Stars" as they go cir- 
cling by, having seen with spiritual ken the unnumbered sys- 
tems of worlds circling by other systems still more remote, will 
raise to the wonderful creator of worlds without number — to 
Him who has obtained mercy by being merciful, here on earth, 
the heaven awaiting him will be full of the recipients of mercy. 
He that has so loved on earth can but expect to love in Heaven. 
Nor do all these things one whit detract from a reverential 
belief in the Bible. That book must never lose its power in the 
human heart. But I repeat it was given for all time, and is to 
be interpreted by the light of each age. Nor does this in the 
least detract from its authority. Whether the narratives of 
Jonah be the statement of an actual occurence or an allegory, 
the moral is the same. A man fled from duty and God and 
fell into great distress. Repenting, he was rescued and became 
obedient. No one now claims that the world was created in 
six days, — similar to ours, — yet many once did. That was well 
in those days, it is well now as we understand it. The terror 
of the law did its work among lawless men, the Gospel was far 
better when the time was fitted for the coming of Christ. A 
miraculous conversion was necessary to turn a Paul from a 
persecutor to a believer. Great revivals were of immense value 
in Wesley's day. A stern creed of thirty-nine articles was a 
bulwark over which the infidel would not pass when unbelief 
was rampart. 

But new days are upon us. New civilization blesses us. 
more sensitive spiritual fiber responds to gospel truth today. 
The still small voice does the work now that the thunder peal 
did on Sinai's mount. The child of tender years begins to 
realize for the first time that it once lay in Jesus' arms. De- 
voted Christians are zealously working in the church who 
describe the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ described it, — "First 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." The 
awe-inspiring priest with mitre, robe and censer were essential 
when men were moved mostly by physical exhibitions. The 



2 6o THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

effective minister in the twentieth century is our friend and 
brother, more austere in his own morals but charitable toward 
ours. He is not less zealous, faithful and devoted than his 
ancient brother. He recognizes the needs of his flock with a 
heart full of sympathy, with a faith never flagging. He feels 
sure that Christ demands that his church in these better days 
shall be first in every movement, lifting humanity above the com- 
monplace, — that the good Samaritan should be found at every 
street corner, — that love is the great spiritual lever that lifts 
men out of the slough of sin. By faith he foresees that coming 
day when '"Sin shall be banished, and death yield his prey and 
earth her nations Jehovah obey." Then, indeed, shall there be 
a "new earth," a new humanity, a new interpretation of God, 
a new heaven, a millenium of peace, love and holiness. 

EXTRACT FROM ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL OF ROY F. BARTLETT. 

Were I asked why Electra the Beautiful should have 
apparently fallen out of the glorious pleiades I could not tell ; 
but this I know, there was harmony in the sky when eight stars 
shown. There is harmony now when but even seven shine 
down upon our mortal vision. 

Though unseen by us, I know the "lost to sight" must still 
be shining upon more glorious shores than ours. 

Why the beautiful flowers of summer must fade and die 
and lay their heads upon the sympathetic bosom of Mother 
Earth, I cannot fathom, but of this I am assured, the kind Father 
so orders it in his infinite love for the harmonious symmetry of 
all created things. 

I do know there is harmony in all God's creations. When 
the "morning stars first sang together" all creation joined in the 
grand Diapason. The soughing of the gentle zephyrs, the 
thunder of the cataract, the deep voiced thunder, all blended 
with the timid note of the sweet songster of the heavens, in one 
universal harmonious hymn of praise. 



ADDRESS 261 

Why the good Father should have covered this earth of 
ours with beautiful trees and dowers in the ages past, and then 
have swept them all away and hidden them in the ocean's 
depths for the future use of his created man, I cannot tell ; but 
it was God's way of supplying man with needful things, and 
must be right. There was nothing lost. Angels must have 
wept o'er the scene of desolation, but out of it all comes light 
and joy to man. 

God's love is manifested in it. 

The harmony of his government was not impaired, and 
it is well. 

Should you ask me why that divine teacher, sent by the 
beneficent Father to lead them into all truth, and interpret to 
them the mysteries of nature's laws, who came to feed the hun- 
gering multitude, to triumph over wave and wind, to heal the 
sick and raise the sleeping dead, who came to heal man from 
sin and call him back to his loving Father, should have lived but 
three years in his divine ministrations among men, I reply I 
cannot tell ; but this I know, he declared, amid the quaking 
of the earth and the rending of the temple, "It is finished." 
It was God's way of accomplishing man's redemption, and must 
be well. 

But is Christ dead? Nay, he rose from the grave, he 
promised his disciples to be with them. He said "1 will not 
leave you comfortless." How many mourning souls today can 
testify to the truth of a realization of this promise? 

Earth was too narrow, too earthly, for the sphere of 
Christ's physical influence longer. He came to earth, left his 
influence here and returned to the Father's House to accomplish, 
in a spiritual condition, the work he had to do. 

So do our dear ones come to us. They enter into our souls, 
become a part of ourselves and can never die to us. We may lay 
the house they live in in the tomb; but they are not there, they 
are still in our hearts. 



'■ 



262 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

"There is no death ! The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore; 

And bright in heaven's jewelled crown 
They shine forever more." 

"There is no death ! The dust we tread 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 
To golden grain or mellowed fruit, 
Or rainbow-tinted flowers." 

The granite rocks disorganize, 

And feed the hungry moss they bear; 
The forest leaves drink daily life, 
From out the viewless air." 

"There is no death ! The leaves may fall, 
And flowers may fade and pass away; 
They only wait, through wintry hours, 
The coming of the May." 

"There is no death ! An angel form 
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; 
He bears our best loved things away; 
And then we call them dead." 

"He leaves our hearts all desolate, 

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers ; 
Transported into bliss, they now 
Adorn immortal bowers." 

"The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones 
Made glad these scenes of sin and strife, 
Sings now an everlasting song, 
Around the tree of life." 

"Where'er he sees a smile too bright, 
Or heart too pure for taint or vice, 

He bears it to that world of light, 
To dwell in Paradise." 

"Born into that undying life, 

They leave us but to come again ; 
With joy we welcome them the same, 
Except their sin and pain." 



ADDRESS 263 

"And ever near us, though unseen, 
The dear, immortal spirits tread ; 
For all the boundless universe 
Is life. There are no dead." 

Your son. my dear friends, is no less yours because he 
can no longer sit at your table and gladden your physical eyes. 
Is all the care and love bestowed upon him lost? By no means — 
all these things are immortal, because they are a part of the 
undying soul. Though you may feel like writing upon his 
tombstone, '"How many hopes lie buried here," yet remember, 
dear friends, though hopes may perish, possibilities on which 
hopes are built can never die. These live somewhere — are ours 
still by faith now, and by fruition hereafter. 

Purity can never die. God takes the influence of every 
pure life and scatters it, like sweet incense, over the whole 
community. 

Honesty can never die. The will of the Almighty im- 
mortalizes it. Nor can men die ; but they pass over to other 
scenes in their active life, leaving their influence, — yea, all 
that they were, and thought, and planned as an immortal memo- 
rial among men. But the spirit has passed to its own natural 
condition — the spiritual. 

"But the universal toll 

Is the outward garb which the hand of God 
Has flung around the soul." 

Roy Bartlett can never die. "The "outer garb" lies before 
us, but to the dear family, to those who loved the noble and the 
true, who admire manly character and lofty aspirations, he can 
never die. 

He accomplished life's mission. 

"That life is long that answers life's great end." Happy 
is he who can, in a brief period of years, accomplish what three- 
score years and ten can only do with many anxious souls. 

He was a remarkable young man. Possessed of more than 
ordinary natural ability, endowed with an inherent love for the 



264 THE 0LD SCHOOLMASTER 

noble and the true, cherishing high aims and ambitions, he added 
a steadfastness 01 purpose which would have led to a high posi- 
tion in the world. Selfishness was no part of his nature, nothing 
low or base could appertain to his upright soul. 

A devoted son, loving those who loved him so fervently 
with all his heart, a faithful student, a friend that never failed, 
he has left to all a rich legacy of worth, worthy of tears and ever- 
lasting remembrance. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

BRIDGEWATER. 

My youngest and latest child is the High School at 
Bridgewater. I spend six hours a day with the boys and girls at 
the high school building, and the evening with the boys and girls 
of my younger days in my "Chamber of Imagery.*' 

The school at Bridgewater is a very pleasant one. One of 
the committee and the superintendent were my scholars at 
Houlton. Their children are now my pupils. There are about 
forty scholars, among them several teachers. Bridgewater is 
a very pleasant town in which to teach. The people are cordial, 
and the school unusually bright, pleasant, and enjoyable. 

My readers need remember, if this production is not very 
brilliant, that it was written in the night, after days of teaching. 
I wonder if in six weeks more I shall write at the close of my 
last school report — "Finis." I think not; provided health and 
strength and brain remain as at the present time. I have been 
so long with the girls and boys that no other association seems 
fitting. I seem to need the exhilarating influence exhaling 
from their hopeful, sunny, joyous hearts. 

There is, at this period of my life, an interest in youth never 
felt fully at an earlier date. At sixty-five one can look back 
over the way and discover the glorious successes, and lamentable 
failures in the lives of former pupils. A retrospective view of 
this field causes the teacher of advanced age to feel all the deep- 
er the possibilities wrapped up in the hidden future of those 
immortal souls committed to his care. Now he knows that some 
of those before him will become bright lights in the world, a 



266 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

power for good, a force injected into the mighty influence 
emanating from God, flowing down through the ages, washing 
away the follies of the darker days, and ushering in the Millen- 
nium Dawn. 

He sees now that the quiet boy before his eyes may make a 
name that many thousands will honor ; that another may so live 
that the only tears he will ever cause to flow, will fall on his 
bier, as the surviving multitudes pass by; still another may 
find ways and means to alleviate human suffering, help the needy 
and "rescue the fallen." 

Looking out over those bright faces, that teacher can see 
a half century of time stretching out before him, a brighter day 
than he ever knew, a civilization more nearly ideal, a Christianity 
more Christ-like ; a conception of the Father more in keeping 
with his will as revealed in nature ; a recognition of a more uni- 
versal love for the pure, the beautiful, and the good; a more 
general desire in human souls to rise above mediocre, a public 
conscience taking the Sermon on the Mount as the unchanging 
standard of right, spurning every unholy act in the political 
world ; a toleration in religious matters that will make angels 
rejoice; a Good Samaritan at every street corner, and a. Moses 
in every dark Egypt ; a humanitarianism recognizing the divine 
rights of every man ; a scientific world, conserving more of the 
forces of inexhaustible nature, an ethical condition in which 
the unsolved mysteries of this age shall be proclaimed from the 
house-tops ; — all this and much more he sees, and knows that 
these will become factors in the "new earth" to be. And, alas ! 
he also knows there may be some who, — God forbid, — may 
cause many hearts to bleed, may bring misery upon the world 
and close a life of sin in wretchedness and shame; that the 
bright, pure souls now so child-like, may become the rendezvous 
of all that is vile, debasing, Satan-tainted. 

It is well that the teacher cannot fully realize the full re- 
sponsibilities resting upon him as he stands before that school. 
He would be so appalled that he would hesitate to assume the 



BRIDGEWATER 267 

position. He is aware he gives to those pupils just what he 
has, as Peter did to the lame man. 

All that is in his soul becomes known to them whether he 
will or not. Nay, those plastic recipients will discover in his 
heart that which he himself knew not of. 

But he should feel it to a degree, and carry to that school the 
brain that can instruct them ; the love that will infold them ; the 
heart whose secret thought will enoble their lives when infused 
into them. There does, every hour, come to me, at this time 
of life, as I look over the schoolroom, brighter visions of the 
possibilities awaiting that group of hopeful young souls. When 
I consider the undying influence of a truly good man or woman, 
how the good they do, in ever-widening circles, like the waves 
of the sea, goes on and on, till other spheres are blessed by the 
benign graciousness of a Christ-like deed, — I can see, in that 
studious boy ; the deep thinker of the coming age, the philoso- 
pher to whom nature shall reveal mysteries so long sought 
for in vain. 

Another stands before me as the prophetic statesman who 
sacrifices every personal desire that liberty, justice, and right- 
eousness may prevail. That boy with thoughtful mien is a 
Wesley in embryo, or a Spurgeon. I can see the stores closed, 
the workshops idle, and tears falling like April showers, as a 
sorrowing people gather around the casket of a man the world 
loved, that man a boy now in school. The lawyer and judge, 
the doctor and clergyman, the painter and poet, the artisan and 
farmer, the teacher, the merchant, the soldier leading his coun- 
try's army to victory ; the admiral, making immortal the nation's 
arms, the martyr dying that others may live. 

I can see in that timid, modest girl a woman, gracing a 
home where refinement reigns queen, where heaven almost 
seems to reflect itself, where Happiness and peace, looking in, 
declare : "This is Home !" 

I see in another a Martha, standing beside the bed of pain, 
with hands filled and heart overflowing. Again I see, stand- 



268 THE OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

ing before assembled multitudes, a woman to whom God has 
especially spoken, leading men and women upward to higher 
and better lives. I see Mary sitting at the feet of the Great 
Master, qualifying herself for his service and to serve humanity. 

These are but a few ; but other visions arise, oh how dif- 
ferent ! To these I shut my eyes, and pray God that the reali- 
ties may never come. 

In reviewing life's work, I see much to regret, much I 
would fain forget. My life has been nothing like I had planned. 
Of financial ability I had but little. Of an ability to work I 
had a large amount ; have been able to do hard mental work for 
twelve hours a day, for weeks ; and I cannot discover any dimi- 
nution of that ability. I have never pretended to be a genius, 
whatever I have accomplished is the result of work. I have 
always liked mental exercise, and have rarely become tired. 

Whether I should have been a success as a lawyer, no one 
can tell. Think perhaps I may have been ; my mind has a logi- 
cal element in it necessary for a lawyer. I had ability to study, 
another requisite ; but whether I had the faculty of combining 
theory and fact, of applying law to particular facts, is an un- 
solved problem. 

I do not think I should have succeeded as a pastor. There 
was too much of the schoolmaster' about me. There would have 
been, I am afraid, friction between pew and pulpit when the 
church became sluggish. 

I am content if those with whom I have been connected 
recognize in me a man who has done aught to encourage, as- 
sist, guide and develop. If I have ever been a force awakening 
the dormant energies of any, an influence leading to a more use- 
ful life, an active quickening, undying impulse to attain some- 
thing grand in the world, a moral power that has appealed to the 
soul, and led to better lives, and toward God ; then I feel that 
life has not been wasted. God knows if these things have been 
true. 



BRIDGEWATER 269 

If I should write my own epitaph, I would, perhaps, write 
but one word upon the head-stone, — "Hamlet." A man who 
knew he had great duties to do, and recognized in some degree 
that he had the ability to accomplish them ; but, somehow, could 
never reach the plain on which those duties lie. The circum- 
stances of life, the lack of courage, distrust of ability, an inde- 
finable something - , physical disability — all these have stood 
between many a man and the duty that follow him through 
life. 

But I am content to let the boys and girls whom I have 
lived with, whom I have loved as my own, for whose welfare 
I have been so solicitous, whose lives and careers I have 
watched with almost parental care, write my epitaph. 

I feel sure, if they could all stand around the "narrow 
house" when the bell shall be rung by other hands than mine, 
and school is dismissed, and the last good-bye is spoken, for- 
giving whatever was not pleasant in the by-gone days, letting 
time obliterate all but what is sweet to remember ; they will 
not let me wholly die. "E.vcgi monumentum acre perennium" 
if I can but live in human souls, and could I arrange those 
services, no word should be spoken there, no song sung, no 
prayer offered except by those who knew me best, and whom I 
had taught and loved. 






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